Lust 4 Salvation
by Jakk100
Summary: A young teenager Aaron must find salvation for his family... or what's left of it. However with zombies at every turn, will Aaron find what he needs to save his siblings?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, or Left 28 Alive 7… Seriously though, I'm not part of the production at all.

**Also: **If you haven't seen it, you should check out my Hunger Games League of Legends crossover fanfiction. Especially so if you like lemons, as there is one already and there will be more as I write them in the future.

My eyes widen as I step out of the garage. There are so many zombies, and so little of us. I turn to my little brother Pete and see his pale face, I feel sorry for him, being twelve and in a zombie apocalypse must be a nightmare… well… more of a nightmare than it is for me at least. I put my arm around his shoulder, avoiding the axe he has over his shoulder. He looks at me and forces a smile. I smile back, but it's a genuine smile. I'm happy that even though with everything that's happened, I can still take care of my little brother.

My sister Sarah is the first one to step out, tugging on a chain that starts up her modified chainsaw. I've always admired how much of a boy she was, even before the zombie outbreak began. The past week of these zombies, she had shut herself in the tool shed, pulling apart different power tools and machines, and putting them all together.

The weapon that she steps forward with now is a sign of her good hard work paying off. I take a moment to get a good look at it, making sure not to let go of my brother. It is a chainsaw body, with lawnmower blades attached to the end. A huge fuel tank hanging from it looks like it would keep the chainsaw going for over a year!

There are some wires flailing around the motor with the vibrations of the engine but I don't want to ask what they're for, in case she does something gruesome to demonstrate, I don't want Pete to have to witness gore unnecessarily, although he is a strong little boy. One time he had to take a zombie's arm off with a kitchen knife and he did it without hesitation to save Sarah from being bitten. That's his strength, that he can achieve anything for people he cares about… not me though, I was there watching her scream my name… I hear it in my head even now, '_Aaron! Aaron help!', _but I froze, I just watched in horror…

That's no way for a 17 year old to act, I should be taking care of everyone, not hiding and letting my sister die over my foolishness. I don't even hesitate thinking about it now. I pull the cleavers from my belt and step out after Sarah, who – for a 16 year old – was already tearing through a zombie that had dived over a fence, grabbing at her. Even Pete followed me fearlessly, which didn't fail to surprise me.

The zombies were always easy to kill, the problem was their numbers. They would swarm a street and eventually pack it shoulder to shoulder, stopping the three of us for staying in one area for too long. This street we had to leave early, however, because food in the houses was scarce to begin with. Usually we could last a few months at most, sometimes only a week though.

Luckily for me and Pete, the zombies haven't had enough time to build up and there is only thirty or so from what I can see. I step forward to a zombie woman that had started to shuffle towards me and Pete. I try to step in front of him but he swings the axe off his shoulder, barring my way.

"What is it Petey?" I ask, keeping an eye on the zombie, that was slowly getting closer.  
"I wanna do this one Aaron!" He replied with such a childish tone. If someone didn't know what he was asking about, they would have thought it was a task like walking a dog, not executing a member of the living dead.

I don't doubt Pete's ability, so I step to the side, keeping an eye out if he needs any help. However as I expected, he raised the fire axe above his head, dazzling me with his strength for such a small child. He leapt at the zombie, cleaving down into its head, embedding it half way down, shattering it's skull with a loud crack, that was audible even over the sound of Sarah's chainsaw.

By now, the zombies had well and truly seen us. They began to group together, coming towards us. We did the same, except we backed up to the garage, keeping a clear space behind us so nothing could attack us from behind. We employed this tactic after Sarah lost her boyfriend to a zombie sneaking around behind us. From that day on, she had completely changed, becoming a mindless zombie slaughtering machine that only lived to protect me, and more importantly, little Pete.

Sarah closed in on my left and I swapped places with Pete, so he was in between the two of us. Sarah Took a step forward and I did the same. The zombies were getting closer, the first few beginning to step up onto the pavement off the road. It was only then that I realised I had underestimated the amount of zombies. More of the mindless freaks began to walk into the street from the two entrances to the left and right. They just kept coming, I saw Sarah beginning to panic too.

Her version of panic is different to mine, I begin to shake and sweat breaks out on my forehead. Her version of fear is the snarl on her face fading. Her version of fear began to happen and I know she only ever worries if there is a definite chance of something going wrong. I feel my mouth getting incredibly dry, and I can't swallow. I close my eyes and start breathing deeply, just like Jarod taught me before Sarah lost him. It calmed me down but I had to open my eyes before the zombies reached us, and when I noticed how close they were, I froze. I nearly stopped breathing and my mind flashed back to that night… one month ago…

_Zombies were breaking in all around us, smashing boards from windows and pushing down doors. I have to find us an exit, but there isn't one! Sarah is cutting off zombie's arms as they break through windows, stopping occasionally to wipe the blood off my cleaver. Pete has my other one; he is helping Sarah as best he can. I take his axe from the floor and start smashing the roof with it, I barely reach it but it starts to dent. Some luck! Luck until the door breaks down, Sarah shrieks as the door falls down, pinning her under it. I can't stop breaking in the roof or we're all going to die and it will be MY fault. I catch a glimpse of Sarah under the door, she has flipped the door off her and is limping backwards, slicing zombie faces as she goes. Nothing lethal though, the cleaver is too short for that._

I get to the part that plays in my head before I fall asleep at night and I feel a chill run down my spine. All the while, the zombies in front of me slowly approach.

_I crack the roof, Success! One more hit and it will all break in, then I hear a thud and a scream.  
"Aaron! Aaron help!" shouts a familiar female voice. I slam the axe into the roof, breaking a decently sized hole before turning to see her. Sarah is pinned on the ground, unable to get up with a zombie latched onto her leg. She can't shake it off and she can't stand up. I freeze, as usual when something bad happens. Pete doesn't hesitate to leap forward, landing on the hand with all his might, slicing it clean off the zombie that makes the sound of gargling as blood jets from its mouth onto Pete's arm._

The zombies are only a few metres away, but the story keeps playing in my head, I spend sleepless nights pondering the end.

_I drag a chair to the hole in the roof. Sarah leaps up no problem and hauls herself into the roof. Pete jumps and Sarah grabs his arm, lifting him up. My turn, I stop my legs from shaking and climb onto the chair. I'm still too weak to make the jump myself, I look to Sarah, she looks back. I jump and fall back down, unable to grab the roof. The zombies are pushing through the door, falling over the handless zombie. I begin to panic.  
"Sarah help!" I yell, but she just stares at me.  
She thinks what I did was on purpose!? I'm going to die now, I make a few more jumps but it's no use, then I see a small, bloodstained hand hanging from the roof. Sarah was gone, replaced with a welcome sight.  
"Jump!" Pete called to me.  
I didn't hesitate, jumping and grabbing his wrist, he tried to haul me up, but despite his courage, he couldn't do it, he wasn't strong enough. So he pretended to fall back down trying to hold me. I heard a female shriek and a weight pulling Pete up, Pulling ME up! Pete pretended to fall so Sarah would save us both. He really never fails to amaze me._

The memory goes on but there's no time to think about it as the zombies are little over a metre away. Sarah begins the carnage, as usual, stepping forward and slicing two of the zombies heads clean off with the rotating lawnmower blades. I throw my cleaver, embedding it in a zombies head. Then slicing through the one in front of me, I step forward to retrieve it. As I duck, I hear a whirring noise overhead; I get sprayed with a fine mist of blood as an axe slices through a zombie's throat above me. Petey! Saving me again, probably not for the last time today either.

The zombies keep closing in as we back up to the garage. I begin to have flashbacks of the time when Sarah nearly got bitten… this is how it started. The zombie's trip and pile over the re-killed bodies, decapitated and covering the pavement in a new coat of dark red. The zombies are filling the street and there's no time to do anything but kill and protect Pete.

Sarah turns and bolts, I begin to panic that she's lost her nerve… but this is Sarah, and she always has a plan.  
"RUN!" She shouts.  
I hear a grinding noise and realise it's the garage door closing. I spin and wrap my arm under Pete, who is mid swing with an overhead cleave. Picking him up, I bolt for the door, already at about head height.

By the time I'm 2 metres away from the door, I realise I won't get under it with Pete. It's me or him… one of us will have to stay outside. I hesitate, Pete screams. I quickly react, getting right up to the door on my knees and sliding him under, I just pull my hands out before it closes shut, leaving me outside, and a mindless horde of undead freaks behind me.

I hear Pete crying through the door, and Sarah giving a few screams as well as yelling "No no NO!" over and over. I have barely any time with the zombies about 3 metres behind me, so I pick up the cleavers from where I dropped them. Turning, I shout back through the door. "Run and get out of this house, leave while I hold them off.

I think that I've finally gotten over my fear, saving Pete and sacrificing myself. But then it happens. I freeze again, the zombies are closing in on me, their bloody hands outstretched, beckoning me into death's embrace before the inevitable re-animation. I try to scream but no sound comes out of my mouth. I close my eyes and prepare for the pain to come, but then I hear a loud engine in the distance.

Even over the shrieks of the bloodthirsty monsters walking towards me, the roaring of an engine closes in, echoing off the houses in the street. As it gets close enough to tell where it's coming from, my eyes shoot to the left entrance of the street to see a huge oil tanker, hauling down the street incredibly fast.

A smile breaks over my face as the zombies, who are only a metre away, stop and turn to look at the truck. It's a huge machine, with two figures in the front seats, but it's too hard to make out detail. The zombies that are foolish, or unlucky, enough to get in the way of the monolith are crushed without a second thought; the front of the truck is coated in blood and guts.

As it drives past, the man in the passenger seat looks towards me. He looks about 30, his eyes widen as he notices me and realises I'm not a zombie, he turns and shouts something and I hear the breaks hiss and screech as the truck begins to slow. Some luck, hopefully…

As it stops, the remaining zombies that weren't demolished on the main road begin to crowd the truck. Their arms reach up to the doors, only just reaching the bottom of the frame. The door swings open, brushing their hands aside with a loud thud. The 30 year old man stands and grabs the roof, leaning out. He's wearing a white tuxedo that has gotten slightly coated in blood, but seems to still be washed from time to time.  
"Find a place to hide!" He yells to me. I don't know why he says it but I do what he says, running around the side of the house to find the backyard. A zombie stands in my way between the fence and me, but it only being one isn't a challenge so I ram a cleaver into its skull and keep running. I'll come back for it later.

I leap into the back yard over the wooden fence. That's when I hear gunshots starting. Different intensities of gunshots keep cracking the air. They continue for about a minute before they begin to dissipate; only the occasional shot is fired now.

I hear two sets of footsteps coming around the side of the house, I ready my other cleaver. Two zombies isn't a challenge, I prepare to swing the gate open and jump them but then I hear the voices.  
"Where'd that bloody kid go?" A voice said, it was the man in the white suit who told me to hide.  
"I don't know but he wasn't in our line of fire, we would have seen him," A second voice said.  
"Yeah I saw him ran around the corner, he should be around here," The white suit man said.  
"Hey kid, you out here!?" The second voice yelled.

I swing the gate open, it creaks and I catch sight of them turning and aiming weapons at me, the white suit man has a rifle and the second man, who I notice to be a black man with shorts and a polo shirt, has a shotgun.

"Damn kid, you gave me a bloody heart attack," the black man said.  
"So-Sorry," I stuttered, "I'm Aaron."  
"I'm Nick," The white suit man said. He stepped forward, letting his left hand hold his rifle and embracing my hand with his right.  
"And me, I'm his goddamn guardian angel," the black man said. Patting Nick on the back with his left hand, not too softly either.  
"You're never gonna let me forget that, are you coach?" Nick laughed.  
"You're a coach then," I asked, wiping a drop of blood of my hand that I had gotten from Nick, "a coach of what?"

I raised an eyebrow when the 'coach' began to grin.  
"I was just a gym coach, my friends call me Coach," He told me.  
"I bet my sister will be dying to meet you both," I yelled, remembering that I have two siblings inside the house.  
"Alright, lead the way Aaron," Nick said, gesturing with his hand.

I walk forwards back around the side of the house to the front, retrieving my cleaver from the zombie as I go. I wipe the blood off it as I approach the garage door that had closed over Pete and Sarah, the foreboding barrier that sealed my doom. I crouched down and slid my fingers slowly under the door, then tensed up, trying to stand.

My arms were fully extended and I let out a grunt, it wouldn't budge though.  
"Yo kid," Coach said, booting a zombie's head off as he walked past it, making a sound of an exploding watermelon, "I got this alright?"

I slid my hands out from under the door and stood back. Nick was watching as Coach took a step back from the door. I tried to amuse myself the same way Coach did, I aligned myself with the head of a dead zombie and lifted my leg behind me. I brought it down, slamming it into the side of the zombie's skull. It didn't break off like Coach's zombie; instead, it felt like my foot had broken on itself. I yelped, Nick supressed a laugh. However, Coach burst out laughing, before running full speed at the garage door and jumping at the last second.

He brought his legs up and aligned himself like a torpedo, crashing into the door right on a seam between two bits of the metal. It threw him backwards but he braced himself and quickly jumped off the ground, just in time for the door to collapse inward on itself. He dusted his hands together, signifying a job well done, and looking comical while doing it.

I walk inside, ignoring Coach's light punch on the arm. I start looking around the garage while stepping over the fallen metal sheets, looking for Sarah, but more importantly, Pete. They aren't anywhere that I can see, so I call out his name  
"Pete!?" I call out in a tone of desperation, "Petey!?"

Nick walked in after me; a look of sadness crossed his face as I called for Pete.  
"They can't be gone, they shut themselves in here," I cry out.

I walk through the door from the garage to what looks like a hallway. I scan all the rooms I can as I walk down the hall, keeping my eyes peeled for Sarah, Pete, or a zombie.

I get all the way to the kitchen without seeing anyone, I start to get frantic. I run out of the hallway, into the kitchen, its dark except for the light breaking through the boarded windows.

I see two figures by the kitchen bench.  
"Sarah, Pete!" I scream, running forward.  
"Aaron wait!" Nick yelled.

I ran towards the figures, I didn't have a doubt that it was Sarah and Pete, as I got closer I noticed that it was Sarah, holding Pete's arm.

"Guys!" I yell, Sarah doesn't turn but Pete looks at me, his face is full of tears. "I'm alive, it's ok!"

I walk up, Nick tells me to stop by putting his hand on my shoulder but I brush it off. It's only when I stand alongside Sarah that I realise what's wrong. I don't need her to tell me but she says it anyway, confirming the obvious. What she says makes Nick's jaw drop and makes Coach avert his eyes. Tears come to mine as soon as she says it.

"Petey's been bitten," Sarah said, her voice shaking as she does.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Thank you very much; your support is what keeps me writing! :D**_

"Oh god," Nick said, sitting down on one of the chairs and putting his head in his hands.

Sarah looked away from me, breaking eye contact after only a few seconds. Her face was grave but Pete looked strong, he wasn't letting it bother him, he's always been a strong brother of mine. I feel tears welling up in my eyes as his eyes close, he falls forward into Sarah's arms and she bursts out in tears, crying into his mess of hair that hasn't been properly washed for months.

"You two know what has to be done right?" Coach asks, stepping forward and cocking his shotgun.  
"No!" Sarah yelps.  
"Wait, just a second," I manage to say through gritted teeth.

There's no way it can end like this… it's just all wrong. The kid never dies in the movies; he's always saved by something. Except this isn't a movie, even now Pete is already showing signs of turning, I guess it doesn't take as long for younger children.

"Isn't there any way to save bite victims?" I ask, putting my hand on Nick's shoulder.  
He lifts his head back up, "No, no there isn't," a wash of sadness flows over his face.  
"We should probably end his suffering before he turns, that's when the worst of it happens," Coach says solemnly.

I look at him curiously, how would he know what it's like for someone to turn?

He puts his hand on Sarah's shoulder, she shoves it off.  
"I don't know who you are but you have no right saying what needs to be done!" Sarah yells in Coach's face. "He's my little brother that I've been taking care of my whole life and-"  
I put my hand over her mouth to stop her, she glares at me.  
"These two are the people that saved me, without them I'd be dead… I don't like it but we have to trust them." I say.

I take my hand away from Sarah's mouth and instantly feel the wrath of stone cold words.  
"Are you insane, you just want to KILL our little brother!?" She yells in my face.

I look at Pete; he is just sitting on the bench with a blank expression. I have no idea what came over me for just wanting to end his life because of one little bite.

"We can't just lose hope," I say, "We might find someone with a cure, then we'll regret it."  
"So, we just put our trust in a zombie-child?" Coach asks.  
"He is NOT a zombie-child," Sarah yells, shoving Coach, but failing to move him.  
"Coach, lay off, if they want to bring him along, they can bring him along," Nick says, standing up.  
"Hold up," Coach says, taking a step back, "bring him along? Why can't Aaron take care of him with this girl?"  
"I'm Sarah," Sarah says, ignoring Coach's offer for a handshake.  
"We aren't just leaving three kids out here!" Nick told Coach, "There's room in the truck for more of us."

My jaw drops and my eyes widen, staring at Nick. I stop gawking and recompose myself. The idea isn't a bad one; after all they are two adults that are capable of fighting off hordes of zombies. Also they have a pretty big truck.

It hits Coach pretty quickly that we're going to be tagging along with them.  
"Oh hell no, I don't work well in groups," he says, shaking his head.  
"You'll learn to, plus look… Sarah was it?" Nick says, holding out his hand.

Sarah stares curiously for a second, but then shakes his hand, much to Coach's distaste. I can't say I blame him, I hate favouritism too.  
"Yes I'm Sarah," she said, "and you are?"  
"I'm Nick, I could say I know how you feel… about him," He said, pointing at Pete, "but it wouldn't mean anything, and it would sound really tacky.  
"Thank you for your concern," Sarah responded, "Now we're wasting time, we're going with you now?"

Coach takes up to the left of Nick and the two of them sling their weapons over their shoulders and start walking briskly down the hallway. Sarah helps Pete off the bench and takes his hand, quickly catching up to me as I depart down the hallway.

"Why are we going with them?" Sarah whispers in my ear, "the big one wanted to kill Pete."  
"He's only doing what he thinks is right, he has every right to," I respond, keeping my voice down so Nick and Coach don't hear us talking about them.

When we get to the garage door, Sarah nudges me, thrusting her head towards the collapsed door.  
"Coach…" I told her, which made her look even more worried about going with them.

We all step out onto the driveway, Pete struggles a little bit getting over the fallen garage door.  
"It really makes you sick doesn't it?" Nick says, nudging a dead zombie with his polished shoe.  
"Yeah, she would have been a pretty hot chick before sh-" Coach began, but was cut off when Nick punched him in the arm.  
"Okay, that makes me sick…" Nick recoiled and said with disgust.

The whole time the two banter, I keep an eye on Sarah, who looks incredibly frightened, knowing that Pete is most likely going to turn into one of the zombies, only to be cut down by someone like us. But then there is hope in her eyes too, hoping that Pete doesn't turn.

"What the fuck," Coach cursed under his breath, pointing towards the truck.

A tall skinny man wearing a yellow top and a cap was running from the truck, wrestling with a few different coloured tubes and pipes.

"Hey you!" Coach yelled, his voice echoing off the houses in the street.

The man stopped and turned, I barely heard it but I was sure he had cursed as he turned.

"What do you need friend!" The man yelled back.  
"Don't give us that crap, what are you doing with our truck!" Nick yelled, running forward with Coach.

The man recoiled, but he didn't run, he was insistent that he hadn't done anything wrong.  
"Oh that's your truck?" The man asked, trying to sound genuine.  
"No, it's the kids…" Coach said sarcastically, pointing to Pete.

I walked up alongside the truck, dodging the zombie bodies and getting a closer look at it. Sarah and Pete walked hand in hand to the man.

"He's a cute little guy, he your son?" He asked Sarah.  
A look of anger crossed her eyes.  
"Brother!" She shouted in his face.  
"Easy, easy, I didn't know, youth these days and all…" The man said.

Anything else the five said to each other was drowned out as I opened the driver side door of the truck and scrambled up the framework into the seat. I looked around at the dashboard and put my hands on the wheel. I'd never learned to drive and the apocalypse made it impossible to, but being in the driver seat gave so much control. My hand slid onto the gearstick, if I was going to learn how to drive, it wasn't going to be in a manual. I wasn't ever really co-ordinated.

I turn around to look at the back of the truck, and I am greeted with a frightening sight. I'm looking down the barrel of a rifle, a young girl in a red sweater behind it. Her hair is up in a ponytail, but it's matted with blood, as is everything these days.

She raises her trigger finger to her lips and makes a motion for me to stay quiet. I'm stunned and unable to move anyway, she's more beautiful than anyone I've ever seen, the gun in my face doesn't change my mind about it. I think about disarming her while her hand is away from the gun, but I quickly think against it, I don't even know who she is or what other tricks she has up her sleeve.

Her eyes widen and she quickly grabs my arm, not too softly either. She pulls me between the middle of the two front seats and hisses, "Don't mention anything or I'll end you!"

She withdraws behind the driver seat, hiding herself from view just in time for Coach to come up alongside me.  
"Hey kid," He starts.  
"Aaron," I correct him.  
"Sorry, forgot your name already," He laughs. I know he's just messing with me again. "So are you driving or what?"  
"I uh…" I start, but have nothing to say so I just slide off the seat and down the side of the truck, landing on a dead zombie and covering my shoe in blood and guts.  
"Agh!" I shout, Coach laughs heartily and pats me on the back.  
"Lighten up Aaron, it shows girls how tough you are," Coach manages to say, before bursting out with another wave of laughter.

I follow the truck backwards to the backseat door, opening it with a nod from Coach. My heart beats heavily as I see a flash of red disappear under my chair, I'm glad that it's me that saw it though, or I wouldn't be alive. I climb up the truck and sit down on the seat, my foot hits something solid and I look down to see the rifle that the girl was holding. A hand quickly darts out and grabs it; I lift up my feet with a gasp.

"What's wrong?" Sarah asks, climbing up into the other side of the truck.  
"It was… umm, nothing," I tell her.  
"You're a horrible liar Aar-" she starts, but I shake my head and she just stops. I know that she doesn't understand what's going on but she's smart enough to know something's up, so she gets in without a word and sits in the middle of the truck beside me, helping Pete in after her and sitting him on her lap.

"What about that seat there?" I ask, pointing to the seat to the right of Sarah.

My question is immediately answered when the southern accented man in the yellow shirt climbs in and sits down beside her. I begin to panic when my brain pieces together that the southerner and the girl are working together, but I try my best not to show it.

"Hey there Aaron, I'm Ellis," The southerner says, taking off his hat and wiping his head with it while he reaches to shake my hand over Sarah and Pete.  
"We told him your name, don't worry," Nick said, climbing into the passenger seat in the front of the truck. I assume he must have put the wires back in the front of the truck while everyone else was busy.

It's good that Nick told me that, or else I probably would have made a big deal out of it. Instead, I shook his hand with a smile. When the girl under my chair didn't introduce herself, I began to worry. If Ellis was working with the girl, she would have introduced herself when she heard Ellis do it, but I don't hear anything below me, so they can't be working together.

I begin to panic again but I don't say anything, instead I just let it go so I don't get shot, but I feel my mouth get dry and my heartbeat getting faster.

Coach turns the keys in the ignition, the engine starts but then I hear a loud crackling noise and the front of the truck begins to steam.  
"Umm, is that how this thing starts?" I ask.  
"What did you do!?" Coach yelled, turning to Nick.  
"I fixed the… ugh nevermind," Nick replied, opening his door with a kick and jumping down onto the road.

I watched as Coach did the same, but before he walked away, he yelled back into the car.  
"You, skinny one, Elly!"  
"Ellis," The new arrival corrected him.  
"You broke it, come on now, get out here with us." Coach said, disregarding what Ellis had said.

Everyone got out of the car except Sarah, Pete, and I.

I kept to myself for about a minute, just thinking how far we had come in only about ten minutes, three new people to our group and one young woman hiding under my chair.

The woman under my chair!

I turned to Sarah, keeping my mouth shut. She looked confused as I was looking down at the chair, but she began to notice what I meant when I signalled her to be quiet. She understood immediately what I wanted to do.

_**Thanks for reading chapter two! I'm keeping it on a climactic moment, I guess you'll just have to read chapter three when it comes out to find out what Aaron wants to do, unless you're already guessing it.**_

_**Please leave a review or follow the story, updates will be coming out depending on the traffic, although I'll try to push out chapter three tomorrow because I don't want to leave this climax for too long. Once again, Thank you! :D**_


	3. Chapter 3

Sarah signals at me questioning where to grab the woman, I raise my shoulders to show that I have little idea how she is positioned. Then I remember her grabbing the gun out from under my feet.

I point at my hand, making sure Sarah understands, and then I point to where it withdrew the gun to. I hold up three fingers, counting down silently, when I hit zero, we both plunge our hands under the seat in an attempt to grab the mystery woman.

My hand closes around warm skin and I know I've grabbed her around her arm, I begin to pull, she shrieks from under the chair and I hear a commotion as the three in front of the truck scramble back around to find out what's going on.

Sarah had gotten a good grip on the woman too, and we both pulled her out, keeping her hands from grabbing a weapon to defend herself. When we dragged her out from under the chair, she was shaking around trying to break our grip; we had luckily grabbed both her arms so she wasn't able to get out of it.

When she was fully out from under the chair, Sarah had moved to the right and I was pressed up against the door. We sat the woman down, holding both her arms while we did so. I take the time to look at her more closely. She is actually a very pretty young woman, although she looks like she's about in her mid-twenties. She has a slightly pale complexion and eyes that would probably melt any man's heart, if they weren't filled with hate for me right now.

By the time she stops flailing and realises that she is powerless, she sits in between Sarah and I, looking straight ahead as Coach climbs into the driver seat and stares her in the eyes.

"Who are you missy?" Coach asks her.  
She stares straight ahead, her only movements are her breathing and her blinking eyes.  
"You will tell us… and then you'll tell us what you were doing in our truck!" Coach yells gruffly in her face.  
"I'm taking it," The girl says, with a tone of power.  
"That's a name alright," I let myself say; kicking myself for it as I realised it would just make her angrier at me. Instead she let out one loud laugh; she can obviously tell how nervous I am.  
"So you… are planning on taking my truck!?" Coach says with a chuckle.  
"Not planning on it, doing it," the girl responds.

Nick lets out a shout that makes Coach quickly jump out of the truck. From what I can see, Ellis is holding Nick around the neck, aiming a small pistol and where Coach had just arrived.

The girl takes the opportunity to shove her arm into my stomach, winding me. She jumps towards me after rending me helpless, sliding her left arm into her skinny jeans and drawing out another small pistol, similar to Ellis'. She aims it at Sarah and I feel myself freezing up, just like I always do when someone I care about is in danger.

Sarah's jaw drops and she just stares at me. The woman is sitting on my leg aiming a gun away from me and I can't do anything about it, everyone in the car knows it too which only makes it worse.

"So I'm taking this truck now," She says.  
"What's your name woman!?" Sarah screams at her, letting go of her arm when the gun is aimed in her face.  
"Why does it matter?" The woman responds with another question.  
"So I know who I'm going to kill if she points another gun in my face!" Sarah yells, diving at the woman.

I hear the explosion of the gun firing, but it's too late to cover my ears and my eyes close and I wince in pain as my ears ring. I have to open my eyes as I feel more weight pushing down on my legs. The woman is being held down by Sarah, her arm only got grazed by the bullet. Thank god! The gun is nowhere to be found, so I assume it's on the floor. Once again Sarah never failed to amaze me.

"Now I want to know your name," Sarah says through bared teeth, "Before I end you!"  
"It's Zoey, jeez… why do you care!" The woman yells in Sarah's face.

Coach appears with Ellis by his side, Nick follows them, stroking his throat.  
"Who got shot!?" Coach asks frantically.  
"Nobody," Sarah says, ignoring her arm.  
"Zoey, stand down, we're not taking the truck," Ellis says calmly.  
"What!?" Zoey yells, turning her head to look through a gap between the chair and the wall.  
"We only need a ride, we don't need to forcefully take it, cool it down a bit." Ellis keeps a calm tone in his voice.  
"That would have been nicer to know," Zoey starts, shoving Sarah off her, "before I pulled a gun out!"

Sarah grabs her arm and sits back down, Zoey gets up, sliding into the seat beside Sarah and I, I tremble a bit as she slides past me. In all honesty she scares me with how dangerous she is.

She slumps into the chair beside me, sighing as she hits the leather back of the chair, I move over a bit to make room for her, but even then we're still shoulder to shoulder. She brings her right arm over, offering it in a hand-shaking gesture.

"Thanks for screwing me over kid, you might already know that I'm Zoey," Zoey says with an incredibly forced smile, but even then it still makes my heart skip a beat.  
"I'm… Aaron," I say with a legitimate smile, I shake her hand, "Sorry, for… screwing you over."

I can tell she knows it, as well as Sarah, who is still really angry and sitting right beside her. But Zoey has full control over me after that handshake, me apologizing for saving everyone's lives just proved that.

The door behind Sarah opens and Ellis jumps in, I feel a grip of fear take hold when I realise there's two potentially dangerous people sitting to either side of Sarah, and probably the most unpredictable one sitting shoulder to shoulder with me.

Coach and Nick jump in the front at almost the same time. Coach turns the keys in the ignition and the engine starts with a few clunks.  
"Success!" Coach yells, Thrusting his hands up, narrowly missing the roof.  
Nick turns around and smiles at us.  
"You might want to buckle your seatbelts… and hold on to something." He says with a laugh, turning around and buckling his own.

"Seatbelts are for the weak!" Coach jeers, before promptly stalling the truck with a jolt.

We all fall forward slightly before being thrust back into the chair.  
"Sorry, my bad!" Coach says, restarting the engine.

I hadn't noticed until it restarted, but when the car stalled, Zoey had grabbed my leg. I keep rational about it and guess she doesn't really trust Coach's driving.  
"Want to get the seatbelt Aaron?" She asks me, "or are you too cool"

Her talking snaps me out of my thought that she might already fancy me.

I reach back over my shoulder to grab the seatbelt, blushing a bit so I hide my face. As I bring it down, she takes it from me, brushing her hand over mine as she goes. She's really pulling out all the stops to get me under her control. She keeps dragging it, buckling herself into the same seat as me, which really surprises me.

I look into her eyes while she struggles with the belt, she doesn't notice but I notice something else. Behind Zoey, I notice Sarah, she's looking at me with a confused face, but her eyes widen as she realises what is running through my mind. She shakes her head and I just shake mine back. When I shake my head, I do it to mean 'don't say anything', however she takes it as 'alright, I won't do anything, trust me'. Luckily it gets her to stop looking at me, but I still feel the guilt of lying to her, even when I didn't really.

We pull around a corner really sharply, knocking everyone to the left, Zoey collapses on my shoulder. I know she could have held herself upright, but she purposely tried to play for me even more by putting her head on my shoulder as we turned. Sarah held Pete as he couldn't do anything and began to slide, letting out a shriek of pleasure. I remember that he is only a kid and smile.

Zoey smiles at me and I realise she must think I'm smiling about her putting her head on my shoulder. I give her a soft dig in the ribs, she quickly uprights and pretends she didn't even notice. But we both noticed, I just hope Sarah didn't, for her sake, I doubt she'd understand exactly what was going on.

"So," Coach begins, turning around but quickly turning back when he realises that he's the driver, "Where are we dropping you two off?"  
"We were headed to a farmers market, fruit seemed like a good idea to stock up on," Ellis says honestly. Zoey looks at him when he starts giving away their plans.  
"We were planning on heading to the country with a bunch of supplies in the back of a huge truck, fortifying some land, hoping to ride this plague out, you know?" He asks.

I think about his idea, it sounds like a great one really, almost perfect… but there's something nagging at me and I have to ask it.  
"Are you two…?" I ask, Zoey giggles and Ellis answers for her.  
"Nah not a chance, she's way to old," Ellis says, reaching across Sarah and punching Zoey softly on the shoulder.  
"Only 2 years older, and nope, we're just working together because he owned a farm before this all broke out," Zoey says.  
"And she knows what she's doing around a city," Ellis finishes off.

"You two sure know a lot about each other," Nick says, turning around.  
"Well you have to learn to trust the people you have… with your life," Zoey says, "or else, you'll… lose it." She looks down from Nick. Making me think she has lost someone dear to her.

"Well I trust this big guy," Nick says, patting Coach's back.  
"And I trust my sister, and definitely Pete," I say, patting Pete on the head.

Pete coughs when I pat him, so I cover his mouth with the back of my hand. Zoey grabs my hand as I pull it back towards me.

"What's this?" she questions, pointing to the back of my hand.  
"That would be a hand," Nick joked.  
"No, seriously, what's wrong with Pete?" Zoey asks.

I look at my hand and what I see makes my eyes widen. I look at Pete and take a while to actually notice what he looks like. He is pale and shivering, and there's a small drop of dark, thick blood running down his chin. The same blood that is on the back of my hand.

_**Thanks for reading the third chapter! I might take a break off this for a few days/a week to work on my hunger games/LoL crossover (which you should all take a look at if you like lemons ;D)**_

_**Once again, Reviews would really help, more than you think! I'd be able to take the fanfic in a direction that the review wants me to (if it sounds fun) and criticism is always welcome (as long as it isn't rude).**_

_**Keep an eye out for chapters on both my fanfics coming up soon :D**_


	4. Chapter 4

"What's going on here!?" Zoey asked, a frightened tone coming into her voice.  
"He's…" Nick started, but stopped when he saw the look on my face.

It had to be me or Sarah that said it… or even Pete himself, but he didn't look like he was coping well with the whole thing. I look at Sarah, a tear comes into her eye, so that's it then… it has to be me.

"Pete's been… he's…" I start, but my voice starts to tremble so I stop.  
"It's ok; I think I know what's going on," Zoey said calmly, "you don't have to say it."  
"Well I have to, I have to face up to it eventually…" I reply, closing my eyes to stop myself from crying.

I feel a hand slip into mine… She can't possibly be that cold can she!? She's attacking me when I'm at my worst, by making me think she cares, but overall, she'll just trick me and betray me, I've seen it happen to people all the time before.

My eyes open to look at her hand; she has the same blood on her hand as I do on mine. I look at Pete; she's gone and wiped his chin with her hand. I look into her eyes, with a questioning tone. She smiles as I stare into them. She is really good at this!

I get lost in her eyes for what feels like forever, despite the fact that she's only playing me to get on my side, so she can betray us. Her eyes are a light blue that just seems so pure, yet disregarding the innocence that they carry; she's actually capable of so much betrayal.

She smiles and I feel my heart beating, I swear she can hear it because her eyes slowly start to redirect themselves down, incredibly slightly, but it was still noticeable. I take the time our eyes are locked to look at the rest of her face. One thing that really stands excluding her eyes are her lips, they're surprisingly full, considering how thin she is. They look incredibly inviting.

I hear a screeching and snap out of my trance, Zoey looks away and shakes her head.  
"What the fuck!" Coach yells.

I realise the screeching noise is tyres, the truck drifts until it's flying down the road sideways, a whole 90 degree turn, it would have amazed me, especially seeing as this is a truck, but I was more concerned about how we turned, the force of the turn forced Zoey into my lap… Or bullshit, she put herself into my lap using the turn as an excuse.

As the truck skids to a stop, she slides off my lap, her face going red. Coach pulls on the handbrake and grabs a shotgun from down beside the chair. He kicks the door open and growls.

"Everybody out for a second," He says angrily.

I look over at Nick; he looks shocked too, but not angry like Coach. Ellis is looking at me and Zoey while Sarah undoes her belt buckle. I quickly recoil and let go of Zoey, I was still holding her hand that whole time! I'll have to talk to Ellis about it.

She doesn't seem to react when I jump backwards slightly; she just undoes the belt and lets it slide off us. Thank god she doesn't use it as another excuse to climb all over me.

I pull the door handle and nudge it with my knee so it swings outwards, leaping out of the truck. I turn around to help Zoey out of the truck, but she's preoccupied. She reaches under the chair and draws out the rifle, the one she aimed in my face before. It surprises me that under an hour ago she was planning to shoot me and now she's holding my hand.

She jumps down similar to the way I do, grabbing my shoulder as she does, I should have expected it.

I did the polite thing when she jumped and grabbed her arm that she extended towards me. She hits the ground and pretends to collapse, but when she notices that I'm not going to grab her, she just uprights herself and coughs awkwardly.

I let go of her arm and turn around, noticing what Coach swore about and why he stopped.

"Holy shit…" I whisper.  
"My god," Zoey says, dropping her gun.

Coach comes and stands beside me, Nick walking around the front of the truck. Sarah comes around the back, her face looks grim. I look behind her and see Ellis carrying Pete.

"He's not doing so well," Sarah says, coming and standing beside me.  
"How the hell are we meant to get past this!?" Coach yells  
"It stinks," Nick says.  
"Yeah it's horrible," Zoey replies to him. She lifts her elbow and embeds her nose in her sleeve, resting her elbow on my shoulder.

She is going to get under my skin if she keeps this up.

"How many do you reckon there are?" Ellis asks.  
"At least a few hundred, if not more!" I say.

I wonder what the world would have been like if there wasn't any zombies, if the outbreak in the military lab had never happened. I stare in awe at the sight before me. The pile of zombie corpses, stacked to the height of the houses surrounding it reeks of death, but more importantly, it instils fear deep in my stomach.

It's not the same for Coach, nothing scares him, at least nothing I've seen so far. All I see in his eyes is desperation. All he wants to do is get to wherever he wants to go, and the wall of corpses is stopping him.

"Why didn't you drive through it?" Sarah asks Coach.  
"Let's do that right now shall we?" Coach replies with a sarcastic question, "You can spend the next five years cleaning zombie guts from the truck."

Ellis puts Pete down; Sarah sits down and rests his head in her crossed legs.

"I wonder what's on the other side of this wall," Ellis says, rhetorically challenging everyone to come up with ideas.  
"Let's find out," Zoey whispers in my ear.  
"Oh come on," I say back, "Climbing a zombie corpse wall, are you insane?"

Ellis looks at me and says, "They're dead… see?"  
"It's them coming back that worries me," I say.  
"Oh don't be a baby," Zoey teases, punching me in the arm lightly.  
"I'd rather not find out by climbing them," Nick said.  
"We don't all have to go," Zoey said, smiling at me.  
"Oh hell no," I say, but I can't help smiling… falling into her trap again.

I look to Coach, but he's just annoyed that there's no way to get past the wall. I look to Nick, I think he's noticed what Zoey's been up to, but whether he's figured out why, I won't know unless I ask him. I look at Sarah; she's weeping and holding Pete. I barely ever see her cry, but this seems like a good enough reason if there ever was one. Ellis is watching me intently; I think he's noticed what Zoey's been up to as well.

"So come on!" Zoey yells. Does she think this is a game or something?

She takes my hand and pulls me along. I see Ellis's eyes widen as she does it, Nick suppresses a smile. Nobody understands what's going on with her except me! And it's not like I can call her out for being a backstabbing person here, or she'll play innocent.

Instead I fake a smile, to pretend I've fallen for her tricks. I run along beside her as she runs towards the zombies. I hesitate as we get closer, letting go of her hand. She turns around, still smiling, and looks at me, wondering what made me stop.

"Do you really think these are all dead?" I ask her.  
"Of course, baby," She responds. I panic for a second, but then I remember she called me a baby before as a joke, she wasn't calling me the pet-name baby… at least I hope not, but with her, anything's possible.

I'm unsure; I don't really trust her just because she's trying to be cute. I kick a zombie corpse, but it doesn't move. I keep looking around the lower layer of the wall making sure none of the zombies are actually alive, when I feel something bounce off my head.

I look up and see Zoey; she's already scaling her way up the wall incredibly fast.  
"Come on, you're so slow," Zoey teases.

I start to climb up the wall; I don't even know why I'm doing it when I start to place my hand on a rotting zombie. I take a few steps, cautiously trying not to collapse on the wall of zombies. Looking up at Zoey I see her sitting on a ridge in the wall. She offers down her hand. I'm only a metre or two up but I take it anyway, any small amount of help counts.

When I take her hand, a huge smile spreads across her face. She helps me up to the ridge that she's sitting on, standing up as I get to her height. The ridge is only one zombie wide so when she lifts me up; she presses herself up against me. I can't say I blame her for it, this is probably the one time she has a reason to, but it doesn't stop me from thinking it's still a forced gesture.

A look of fear crosses her face and her arms sway as she tilts backwards, a four metre drop behind her. I throw my arms around her waist and pull her back against me, she gasps as I do it so I let her go, but it's too late. She's already grinning at me and she winks before she keeps climbing.

I don't let her tricks get to me; I just start climbing after her.

"Are you enjoying the view?" Zoey calls down to me.  
I look down, I was following her up so whenever I looked towards her I was getting a direct view of her ass.  
"I… uh…" I stutter.  
"Not me!" She laughs, "Look around."

I'm glad she isn't looking at me when I blush incredibly red. Why would I mention I was looking at her ass!? Instead, to take my mind of it, I turn my head and look around, my thoughts of how her body looks are instantly replaced with thoughts of vertigo as I realise how high we've climbed up. I've never had a head for heights, even small heights. I begin to sway and my head gets light.

"Help," I manage to barely call as I begin to fall.

I see the sky appearing above me as I fall backwards, but then I feel a hand wrap around my arm and I'm brought back to reality. My arm jars and my vision clears, I'm staring up into Zoey's eyes, she's smiling at me. I don't smile back this time; I just look away so she doesn't know what I'm doing. I'm sick of her playing me for a fool; I won't fall for her tricks.

"Are you two lover birds done flirting?" Nick calls up to us. I blush but Zoey just gives a thumbs-up down to them. What could she be playing at this time!?

I finish cautiously climbing to the top of the wall in silence, not making eye contact. When I get to the top of the tower, I stand up arching my back. I get ready to call down to the group that the two of us made it to the top but a hand covers my mouth and stops me right as I inhale.

"Get down," Zoey whispers to me, diving to her stomach on top of the zombie corpses.

I hesitate as I despise the thought of diving onto rotting corpses, but Zoey knocks me off balance and I land beside her, lying on my stomach too.

"What's wrong," I whisper, looking at her with concern.  
"Just look!" Zoey hissed, not even turning her head towards me.

I follow where she is pointing down to the courtyard that the zombie wall had blocked from sight, instead of seeing an abandoned street like I expected to, I see people. But the 'people' aren't zombies, these are actual humans!

_**I haven't been in a writing mood recently; I guess it's my stress about my surgery in 3 days (getting close now). Reviews always welcome, please do leave a review, it helps me out so greatly you wouldn't begin to imagine!**_


	5. Chapter 5

**_Sorry, it's been so long since I've updated this, To be honest, I just haven't found myself wanting to write any fanfiction. There should be more chapters of this coming up from time to time however, if anyone is still reading this, please enjoy :)_**

"Do you think they saw us?" I ask Zoey, keeping my voice no higher than a whisper.  
"I don't know… do you reckon we should ask them?" She winks at me, I nudge her with my elbow.  
"What are they even doing, and how did they make such a massive wall of corpses, they must be really dangerous," I start to rant on everything that runs through my head about the new people.  
"Whoever they are, they look a bit dangerous," Zoey begins, "Look at that one."

She leans really close to me so I can follow her hand where she points it. I sight the person she is pointing at; he is walking around the perimeter of the wall, looking up occasionally. In his hands he is holding what looks like a pretty heavy machine gun. He is wearing a huge backpack which I assume is full of the ammunition.

"This place is well protected, it's a bloody fortress," Zoey curses.  
"And I doubt they're friendly," I add, finishing the thought.

I feel the blood drain from my face as I hear the one thing I didn't want to hear ever since I saw the new humans, someone yelling from the bottom of the wall.

It isn't the side of the new people that I hear the noise from, it's behind us!  
"Hey! What do you see!?" Coach yells up to us.  
"Fuck!" Zoey curses under her breath, "is he TRYING to get us killed?"  
"He didn't know," I remind her.

I move to the back of the wall so I can signal the group to make no more noise until we got back down but Zoey grabbed my arm, stopping me.

"Do you want them to yell again?" I whisper to her.  
"Do you want to get shot if they catch you moving?" she responds to me.

I admit that she has a point and I try to sink myself into the dead zombies as much as possible, it doesn't appeal to me but I really don't have a choice, I can tell Zoey doesn't like it either.

"Look, if I can completely bury myself in the zombies, you can lie on my back instead, at least then it won't be as disgusting for both of us," I tell her modestly.  
"I can tell you're trying to be chivalrous and all, but I'm a lady, not a little girl, I can take a bit of gore," Zoey informs me.

When we're about half way buried into the bodies, Zoey taps me, signals for me to stop moving, and then curls up as much as she can. I peer down the wall of bodies and see the man with the machine gun and the backpack walking around on the ground, looking up at the top of the wall.

Fear catches in my throat, if he sees something moving, I assume he won't hesitate to shoot, judging by this wall of corpses.

"Hey Aaron!" The man at the bottom of the wall yells, turning around to the group in the middle of the street.

I gasp as I feel the blood drain from my face. How does he know me? How did he see me!?

Zoey at me and I can see that she's mirroring my fear, probably asking herself the same questions I am asking myself right now.

A man gets up from the middle of the road where everyone was sitting and walks over to the man at the bottom of the wall.  
"You called?" He said.

I feel a wave of relief run over me, letting a smile break across my face. They just have a person called Aaron; he didn't see me at all. Zoey giggles quietly, sliding her hand towards mine. I feel her finger brush across my wrist before her fingers begin to search for the spaces between mine.

"Stop doing that," I hiss at her, she looks offended.  
"What's wrong?" She responds obliviously.  
"You doing this," I begin, forgetting the people below us, "Holding my hand, throwing yourself at me in the truck, I can tell what you're doing, and believe me, I'm not going to fall for it!  
"You…" Zoey starts, but just lets her eyes drop. Her hand withdraws from mine and I'm left feeling completely defeated.

I don't know why I took so much offense, I was telling her that I wasn't going to play her little game, I outsmarted her in her trickery. Yet I felt like she was genuine about it all, as her hand withdrew from mine, I couldn't help but feel the remorse in her movement, like she'd made a mistake.

"Alright, let's get down before they notice us," Zoey says, her voice sounding weak and shaky.  
"I'm sorry…" I start, trying to console her.  
"Don't worry, it's alright," She responded in a monotone, not making eye contact with me.

Zoey quickly takes the lead in climbing down the wall, sliding efficiently down the bodies, barely stopping. I'm a bit more cautious in my descent, testing my weight with every step so I didn't fall. I knew for sure if I fell now that Zoey wouldn't save me.

When Zoey is only two metres from the ground, she lets go of the wall and slides to the ground on her back. She lands and steps off without a second thought, showing me even more how little she actually needed my help on the way up the wall.

I finish my descent similarly to Zoey, sliding to the ground; however I land wrong and collapse to the ground. A hand extends to help me up, I shove it away and stand up, expecting to stare Zoey in the eyes, but instead I see Ellis smiling warmly at me.

"Don't wanna be one-upped by a girl, I can understand that," Ellis cheerfully says.  
"Sorry," I start, awkwardly trying to apologize without giving away why I ignored the hand, "I'm ok, just tripped is all."  
"I'm sure that was all it is," Ellis responds, I could tell he wasn't satisfied but he hid it well.

I looked over to the truck, Sarah and Pete were obviously in the back, they left while we were still climbing the wall, but something made me worry. Zoey wasn't anywhere to be seen. I look at Coach but he doesn't seem to have noticed anything unusual.

As I walk around to the side of the truck, I see that Zoey is sitting in the back which makes me smile to myself. Even though I told her I knew what she was up to, I still thought she was an exceptional girl.

Panic begins to rise when I realise that she's in the back of the car with Sarah and Pete, meaning she could be telling them all sorts of things to turn them against me. I quickly make for the truck door but I'm stopped by Ellis, who is looking at me questioningly.

"Let's talk real quick," Ellis says to me.

I can already tell what this is about, it has to be about Zoey, maybe she said something… or maybe Ellis just saw that something was up. Whatever it was, Nick and Coach didn't object when Ellis began to lead me away from the group, Nick just stared indifferently at me when I looked at him for a sign.

When we were about fifty metres away from the truck and the group, Ellis turned and looked at me, saying with a saddened tone,  
"Yes, you've already assumed it, this is about Zoey."


	6. Chapter 6

_**I won't be uploading as fast as I did from chapter 5-6 all the time, just as a warning, I'm just catching up a little bit is all because I left you all without a chapter for a while.  
Enjoy!**_

"If this is about what happened…" I begin, but Ellis raises a hand to silence me.

"Look, let's just walk and talk," Ellis says, taking off at a slow pace towards the end of the street, away from the group.

I begin to panic as my alarm bells tell me that he's leading me away from the group to kill me without anyone finding out. He and Zoey are working together, I know that much, but maybe he swore to kill anyone who hurt her in any way.

I slow my pace so as to not lose sight of the group, but Ellis turns around and looks at me with a genuinely curious face.  
"Sorry," I begin, "I was just thinking about something,"  
"Please, by all means, just say whatever comes to your head about it. We'll discuss this like men, alright, not little children," Ellis tells me which somehow makes me lighten up a bit.  
"So anything I say here, what will you do with the information?" I ask him curiously, catching up to him so we're walking side by side.  
"Everything said in this conversation stays between us, nobody else will find anything out," Ellis says, smiling slightly and nodding to me.

I feel a great wave of relief and sigh loudly, smiling under the knowledge that I can be completely open around him and trust him not to tell anyone. He has a tone on his voice with his promises, it makes honesty almost shine off him like an aura.

"Well… Zoey's really cute and-," I begin, he cuts me off with a laugh, I blush slightly.  
"I'm going to have to agree with you there, she's a fine piece of work that girl," Ellis says, smiling.

I feel a pang of jealousy, I used to get this all the time before the zombies, whenever I saw a girl I liked with somebody else, they didn't even have to be dating for me to feel the jealousy.

"You planning on something then?" Ellis says, breaking my train of thought.  
It takes me a second to realise what he means.  
"Oh no- I… I mean," I begin to stutter, watching him enjoy my struggle, "You're putting me on the spot,"  
"Alright," Ellis chuckles, "Tell me when we're heading back to the truck,"

Anxiousness grips me, he obviously knows that I like her now… but did I really even know myself?

"I'm curious what happened up on that wall, when she came down, she didn't look at anyone," Ellis told me, taking on a quieter and more serious tone, "She didn't say anything. She walked to the truck, got in, and slammed the door."  
"Well it's really hard to explain," I begin to tell him, but he quickly responds before another stuttering fit.  
"You can say anything remember," He reminds me, "so go from the start, tell me everything that'll make it easier to explain."

I consider lying, it runs through my head very quickly, almost as if it wasn't there, but it actually seemed like a good idea. Would he understand why Zoey was doing what she did to me? Maybe she did it to him when she first met him. I barely even know either of them and yet I'm about to trust this southerner with such important information.

I break out of the thought to notice him looking at me, waiting for me to talk; I had gone for about twenty seconds in silence. I decided that it would just be easier to tell him the truth. Maybe he could even give me some advice in how to go about it.

"Well I guess I do like Zoey a bit, you know…" I say nervously.

Silence follows, I'm afraid that Ellis is about to bolt to the truck and tell everyone, but common sense questions why he would do it and what he could possibly gain from publicly humiliating me.

I risk looking at his face, worried that he is suppressing laughter, but when I look, I see that he is beaming with some form of happiness.

"You're just going to leave me in silence…" I begin to ask him, "Not explaining anything?"  
"Here's the thing," Ellis begins, "I'm glad you trusted me with that, now it will be so much easier to talk, about anything."

I smile as I realise that he's right, and I decide to continue.

"Well it's been ever since I first saw her… when she was in the back of the truck," I begin to explain. He nods, so I carry on.  
"She was immediately cute to me," I continue, beginning to go slightly red, "Also quite dangerous, which really appealed to me."

Ellis laughed, sharing his agreement.

"Then she started to do weird things," I say, making Elli's smile fade.  
"What do you mean 'weird'," He says, looking at me seriously.  
"Well she's trying to corrupt me, if that makes any sense," I tell him truthfully.  
"Go on," Ellis eagerly pressed.  
"She'd do things, like holding my hand, or purposely trying to catch eye contact with me," I start, "And at first it was pretty cute, and a little bit of fun really, but eventually I began to realise more and more that she was really just trying to make me turn against Sarah, and Nick and Coach. I wasn't going to fall for it of course, but I can really tell what you two are up to."

I finish talking and look at Ellis, he isn't looking back at me, instead he is staring pensively down the street, in a sort of trance.  
"Hello?" I say curiously, snapping him back to reality.  
"Yeah, I don't really understand her either," Ellis says, turning around to walk back to the truck and picking up a brisk pace.

"That's really all the advice you can offer?" I pry.  
"There's not all that much I can give you," Ellis says, monotonously.

We walk quickly in silence back to the truck. As we get close, Ellis turns to me and says, "Look, I can't explain to you what's going on with her, I barely know her myself. I'm just going to tell you, we don't have a 'plan' as you made it sound. Whatever she's doing, It's entirely her idea."

Ellis takes off, walking in the direction of where Nick is standing. I stay back, thinking about what Ellis had just said. Maybe she does have a plan to take over our group, but maybe there's something else too, and false hope is something I fall into all too much, with today being no exception.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Review if you like it! :D Let me know what I can work on or what you liked in particular.**_

I decide that it's probably easier for me to make sense of what Ellis just said if I wasn't around the group. I walk towards Nick, Coach and Ellis, overhearing them discussing the wall.

"I wonder why it's here," Nick says, gesturing towards its peak.  
"I don't know, but whatever set it up had some muscle," Ellis nods in self-agreement.

I remember that none of them saw what was over the other side of the wall.

"Survivors," I butt into their conversation.

They all turn and look at me, so I continue, "A group of survivors are on the other side of that wall."

All three of the men are staring at me, most likely wondering why I hadn't said anything sooner.

"They're heavily armed," I finish, turning on a heel and walking away to let them discuss in peace.

I walk down a side alley, looking for any respite from the group, making sense of everything that I had just learned. Why wouldn't she let Ellis know of her plan, they were working together even before they joined us.

There's my hope that her expressions are actually genuine, that she might actually care about me… or 'like' me, but I know that things just don't work out that way. When something seems too good to be true, it tends to be.

The sun is completely gone, and the dim light is slowly fading, but I decide not to return to the group just yet. I've always liked the serenity of darkness and night; it's easier to think properly when I can't see properly.

In the dwindling light, I wander into an abandoned backyard. The grass is overgrown, thick and scraggly like a man's beard when he hasn't had the time to shave. In fact, thinking of this quite reminded me of myself, I can't really grow much in the way of facial hair, but the past few weeks I haven't had enough time to concern myself with appearance.

If a zombie apocalypse wasn't going on, I would have looked at this place as a sort of paradise, it's so clean, free of the infection, and yet it's only so close to the wall of death that I had just scaled.

I find a tree and lean up against it, sitting down in the overgrown grass, letting all my stress and concern about everything dissipate.

I sigh a breath of relief as a cold wave of air rushes over me, chilling my face and arms. I have time to think about everything that has happened today in such a short space of time. Obviously I've fallen into a trance for Zoey, that much has been clear to me for a while now, but whatever she has been doing has been completely independent.

It makes me feel alone to think about Zoey as I haven't seen her in around an hour… strange really, I've spent 17 years without knowing her and now, after only a single day of knowing her, I'm already missing her.

I break free of my thoughts and realise that it has gotten incredibly dark; I lift my hand up and can barely see it in the complete darkness. I look up through the leaves of the tree above me and realise that there is no moon out tonight.

Unfortunately, thinking about how dark and eerily quiet it is made a set of footsteps rustle up from around the side of the house. My pulse quickens as I hear the shuffling through thick grass, coming towards me. I fumble down on my shin where I would sheath my cleavers, but I left them in the truck! Curse me for being so foolish and letting my guard down this easily.

I could risk running for it, I know where I came into the backyard, I could bolt past the zombie and make a break for the truck, but I've gotten a long way away from it and I don't know how many more zombies there are out there.

I bite my tongue to stop myself from cursing myself out loud, I'm such an idiot… and of course this would happen the same day I meet a girl other than my sister who is still alive!

The footsteps are incredibly close now, and they still don't let up. I can see the figure of an adult male moving towards me, though it didn't share the figure of Coach, Nick, or Ellis. Hopefully it's not a survivor from the other side of the wall, who knows what they would do to another survivor.

As my mind runs over all the different forms of torture they could put me through, or the forms of torture a zombie could inflict. The figure stops moving, facing directly towards me.

"Aaron?" A familiar voice calls.  
"No way," I whisper.  
"Is that you?" It asks again.

The figure is so unnatural, yet the voice is unmistakably Zoey, there's no way I could confuse that voice with anyone else's.

"Zoey!?" I manage to cry out, my pulse lowering when I conclude that I'm not in any danger.  
"Aaron!" She squeals, diving towards me and wrapping her arms around me.

My eyes widen, I'm completely shocked. I offended her not two hours ago, and was planning on apologizing as sincerely as I could, but apparently there was no hard feelings in my complaint.

I decide not to leave her holding me awkwardly, so I placed my arms around her waist and stood up. She stood up with me, and I noticed for the first time that I was actually taller than her, it just didn't seem that way because of the dominant nature about her. I pull her in towards me, giving her a full embrace, the most loving that I could. I'd wanted to do that for a while.

"I was so worried," Zoey complained, uncoiling her arms from around my shoulders and staring unblinkingly into my eyes.

I stared back, her eyes shimmering darkly, a blue that resembled the depths of the ocean. It seemed so perfect to be alone with her in the darkness, the slow cold breeze flicking the tips of her hair from side to side like the tail of an excited puppy.

For a moment, my heart skips a beat. It finally hits me that I might actually kiss her right now. I know a kiss doesn't mean anything to most seventeen year-olds; however I've never actually had a girlfriend, so the thought of kissing someone still makes my knees go weak. What if I get my first kiss wrong? Sure when you're twelve it's ok, funny even. But at seventeen, messing up a kiss would be nothing but embarrassing.

Zoey must sense my hesitation into anything more, or she just got bored, because it's at the moment where I'm wishing desperately that we would kiss, but also hoping that we don't, when she slides her hands off my shoulders and says, "Come on, before they begin to wonder where we are."

I heave a sigh of relief, a weight lifted off my shoulders, I literally feel lighter from it. If Zoey notices something, she doesn't mention it; instead, she takes my hand in hers and begins to walk back around the house. I don't withdraw my hand like I did on top of the wall; instead, I'm happy to share her touch as a friend, not as a tool in her takeover.

I take a while to really appreciate the embrace, thinking and then overthinking every small portion of her hand. Her smooth pale skin almost seemed to glow in the darkness of the moonless night. Her pale skin makes me curious, so curious in fact that I end up saying out loud, "Why is your skin so pale?" and then instantly kicking myself for asking such a stupid question without thinking.

Zoey giggles and responds, "Do you ask that to darker skinned people too?" She teases.  
"I don't know why I asked, it was stupid," I respond.  
"Oh don't think anything of it," Zoey calms me slightly, before instantly putting me back on edge by asking, "What appeals to you so much about it?"

I hadn't even thought about why her skin had caught my attention over everything else at that time. I guess she knows me better than I do, thinking about it now, it really does appeal to me.

"I have no idea," I say curiously, questioning myself the exact way she asked me.  
"You really do share your awkward moments with the rest of us though, don't you?" She asks.  
"I don't know why it's so bad, nobody else has this trouble," I respond obliviously.

Zoey smiles at my remark and looks down at the floor as we approach the truck. I completely forget that I'm holding Zoey's hand until I walk up to the group sitting around a small fire. Nick looks at me and winks, making my face turn red when I realise that Nick doesn't know about my feelings for Zoey, I only told Ellis.

"You were gone for a while, it's pretty late," Coach warns, looking up at the sky.

I let the time catch up to me and realise that I'm actually incredibly tired from everything that has happened today. Too much has happened since this morning when it was only Sarah, Pete and I.

"So what's the plan?" I ask, my mind assuming someone would understand what I mean. The only two other people that would understand that statement are Sarah and Pete, and they're both asleep in the passenger seat of the truck. When the blank expressions meet my question, I repeat the question.  
"Where are we sleeping, and who's keeping watch?"

"Well we're not using a house, those places are a trap waiting to happen," Nick declares.  
"So you're left with two choices," Coach begins, "The truck, or… the truck!"

Coach laughs at his joke, however nobody else seems to understand his humour, so the joke is short lived.

"I'll keep first watch then," Coach says, the smile fading from his face, "You guys are no fun."  
"Well I'm staying up for a while anyway, I get too many nightmares from these zombies anyway," Ellis declares.  
"I'll be off in a little while," Nick says, producing a steel flask from the inside of his coat, "Whether I want to or not."

I assume that he drinks pretty strong alcohol, as when he has taken a hearty swig, his eyes roll back into his head.  
"Gah," He proclaims, swallowing the last of the mystery liquid. He can obviously sense my curiosity as he asks me, "You want some Aaron?"

Coach suppresses a laugh; I can tell that this is some kind of trial. No matter what it was, I didn't want to look like a baby in front of Zoey, so I step forward, taking up the flask and lifting it to my lips. A smell hits me, nearly making me retch, however I hold it back. It's too late to turn back and I fill my mouth with the liquid.

The moment I've filled my mouth and removed the flask, I instantly regret my decision. It begins to burn, a hot and dry fire lights on my tongue, the flames licking their way into my nose and down my throat. My cheeks puff slightly, but I retain the liquid. I quickly glance at Nick to see if it's some kind of joke, but he's looking at me intently. Coach can't hold his laughter anymore and bursts out a few cackles.

The face that holds the most attention is Zoey's. Her eyes are full of curiosity and concern. I can tell that she wouldn't think any differently of me if I spat the liquid out, but I refuse to open my mouth regardless.

The time comes where I've put swallowing it off for too long, the pain of holding it in my mouth begins to become too intense. I suck it up and tell myself that it'll be over the second I swallow. And then I gulp deeply, the inferno slowly sliding its way down my throat.

"Gah!" I yelp, mimicking Nick, except a bit more childishly.  
"Well done," Nick says, smiling at me, "that's some pretty strong scotch."  
"You gave him straight scotch?" Ellis questions Nick.  
"He would have asked if I didn't offer it," Nick responds.

I realise that he's right, and before I know what I'm doing, I clear my throat and turn to Zoey.

"You want some of it?" I ask her, my voice sounding hoarse.  
"It doesn't look pleasant," She responds, smiling at me.

I hand the flask back to Nick, who screws the lid back on tightly and replaces it in his pocket where it came from.

"You might want to be sitting down in a few minutes," Nick says, making Coach burst out with laughter again.

I walk away from the group; Zoey attaches herself to my arm as I go.

We walk to the truck slowly, I enjoy every moment of her company that I am given. As we get to the truck, I begin to feel a slight hotness in my feet and tingling in my fingertips, it feels to me like millions of dull pins, prodding and poking at my skin.

When we get to the truck, Zoey signals for me to be quiet, gesturing to where Sarah and Pete are sleeping.  
"Ladies first," I say cockily, bowing as I open the door. What the heck am I doing!?

Zoey seems to enjoy it, she giggles and climbs into the truck. I instantly launch myself in after her, wrapping my arm behind her and sliding it down the front of her Jeans.

I hear her gasp and shake a bit, before it hits me that I'm being incredibly stupid.

"Aaron, what's gotten into you," Zoey asks cautiously.  
"I don't know," I respond, "But I like it."  
I thrust my hand further into her pants; the truck begins to spin around me and my vision begins to blur.  
"Aaron, Please!" Zoey cries, "This isn't you!"  
I grin wickedly at her, moving my face in towards hers, instead of what I expect to happen, I feel a cold crack on my cheek, hearing the sort of sound that a whip could produce.

My hand slides out of the front of her pants, she sighs as it goes. She pushes me backwards and I collapse to the chair, holding my head when I collide with the soft leather upholstery. Zoey climbs over me, thrusting the door open and jumping over me quickly and out into the cool night air as it washes over my face.

I can already tell I made a mistake, I don't know why, my head is spinning and I can't think straight, I don't even know what just happened, I can barely remember even though it just happened.

I roll my head backwards to look out the open doorway of the back seat; Zoey is quickly storming to the campfire, her head in her hands. Nick stands up and holds her by the arms, sitting her down on the chair he had set up. He then turns and walks towards the truck. The last thing I can make out is Nick asking me "What did you do!?"

All I can manage is "I fucked up…" Before blacking out.


	8. Chapter 8

I open my eyes, a sharp bright light blinding me from overhead, the sun… I hate the sun. My head is throbbing; I clutch my skull with my hands, gritting my teeth and silently begging the pain to stop. The aftertaste in my mouth is worse than anything I could ever imagine.

I groan out loud and hear a noise from the front of the car, a few clicking noises. I look over and see Nick cleaning his pistol. He turns around and smiles at me.  
"Morning princess," He jeers.  
"What happened?" I croak, my sounds like sandpaper on wood.  
"You passed out," Nick laughs, "You know you're a real dickhead when you're drunk."

I throw myself upwards, remembering what I had done to Zoey.  
"Oh god, please tell me that was a dream!" I beg.

My head begins to spin, I regret sitting up so fast, I feel something stirring in my stomach. A small black plastic bag lands in my lap, I immediately grab it and empty my stomach contents into it.

"You never drank that much before I take it?" Nick asks me.  
"I've never drank anything before," I manage between a second wave of vomit.  
"I'm sorry your first drink had to be this bad," Nick apologizes sincerely.  
"I'm not worried about myself, I want to know how Zoey is," I exclaim, throwing open a truck door.  
"Now that's cute," Nick says to himself, then he turns to address me, "you might want to give her some space though, your actions will take a little while to heal, just give her some time."  
"Do you think she'll ever want to talk to me again?" I ask.  
"She's a woman, she'll come around eventually, not like us stubborn men," Nick laughs.

He picks up a rag and begins to wipe down his gun. I slowly lower myself out of the truck onto the hard ground. I squint as the glare of the sun reflects off the road and temporarily blinds me. I hit the ground and stagger, holding the door to prevent myself from falling over.

I look up and judge that it would be about midday, the sun was bright and glowing overhead like a beacon. The group seems to be scattered around, Coach is asleep in a chair by the dead fire, Ellis is walking from side to side of the zombie wall with a shotgun in hand, and Sarah and Pete are walking up the driveway of a house on the other side of the road. The only person I can't see is Zoey.

I decide to follow Nick's advice and I don't go looking for her, instead I decide that it might be smart to spend some time alone with my family… or what's left of it… instead of chasing pointlessly after a girl. I make off for Sarah and Pete, keeping at a walking pace so I don't fall over with my hangover.

"I'm never drinking again," I declare to myself, "At least not like that."

As I step onto the driveway, Sarah has only just managed to lift the door and wedge it open.  
"Aaron!" Pete calls, running towards me. I get down on one knee and catch him as he jumps towards me and grabs my neck.

My mind flashes back to yesterday, how similar that was to when Zoey found me, but I dispel the thoughts, right now it's about my family, nothing and nobody else.

"We've just been making sure all the houses along the street are clear so we can have somewhere proper to stay," Sarah tells me, making sure a chair is properly wedged under the garage door.  
"We're not planning on spending too long here are we?" I ask her.  
"Well, what's wrong with that?" Sarah responds.  
"Not much," I say sarcastically, "but we might as well introduce ourselves to the neighbours then."

Sarah looks at me quizzically. My eyes widen as I remember that I haven't told everyone about the people over the wall yet.

"Oh yeah, right, about that," I start awkwardly.

I explain to Sarah what I saw over the wall. Pete looked excited the whole time, which only worried me more about him.

"He seems to be recovering from the bite," I say to Sarah, smiling.  
"Yes," Sarah responds ecstatically, "Yes he does. Ever since this morning, he's just been getting better."

"So we're investing in real-estate?" I question, in a joking tone.  
"Not if the neighbourhood is a violent one," Sarah responds in the similar tone.  
"Aren't they all these days?" I ask rhetorically, the tone dying slightly from my voice.  
"Still," Sarah begins, "if there are some bad people out here, it would be safer to get inside."  
"Why don't we just pack up and move on?" I ask.  
"I asked Nick that exact same thing this morning," Sarah tells me, "he said that there would be no use going backwards, and it would just attract attention."  
"I assume it's probably better to stay near other humans too," I suggest, "See if a horde of zombies come down, we can ask them for help, I doubt they'd refuse if their lives were at stake too."  
Sarah nods, "I hadn't thought of that."

It feels good to know that I'm actually spending some time with my family, it seems ever since we met these new people, I'd done nothing but chase after Zoey. I smile when Sarah holds up my cleaver and offers it to me.  
"Just like old times," I say.  
"Just like old times…" She agrees.

We step into the darkness of the house and I flick a switch on the wall. Nothing happens.  
"I guess we can never be lucky can we?" I laugh.  
"Let's go with a bit more caution, back to how this all was before the others came along." Sarah warns me.  
"Well it's always good to have strong allies," I remind her.  
"This'll be temporary Aaron," Sarah says, making any traces of a smile fade from my face.  
"Why," I plead, "Why would we leave the group?"

My mind darts quickly to Zoey, the thought of leaving her makes my heart stop and the blood drain from my face.

"I was talking to Nick, he said it would probably be best in the long run," Sarah tells me, "When we've all had some time to settle down and resupply, it would be smart to go our separate ways."  
"How is that a good idea!?" I whine, "Whatever happened to 'safety in numbers'?"  
"If this is about Zoey…" Sarah begins.

Whatever she says after that, I don't hear, I'm too busy filling with rage, how does she know about Zoey… it hasn't been that obvious, has it? And what nerve caused her to bring it up; of course it's not about Zoey. At least it's not 'all' about Zoey. At least… I don't think it is.

"…and I trust Nick in his judgement about her," I hear Sarah finish.

What she says finds a place in my thoughts, what could she mean about 'Nick in his judgement'? Instead of thinking rationally about it all, I snap.

"Splitting up didn't work too well for Johnny did it?" I ask her.

I feel that I've struck a nerve when I bring up her boyfriend; it was a sensitive topic to bring up, especially since it was really all so recent. I instantly regret bringing it up on the inside, but my stubbornness doesn't let it show. I stick to my argument, staring her directly in the eyes.

"I can't believe you Aaron," Sarah says, her eyes beginning to spring up with tears, "How could you!?"

Any sadistic pleasure I had gained from beating her in an argument completely left me the moment I saw her cry. She hadn't cried at all since Johnny had actually died, and I felt cruel making her re-live the experience.

"I'm sorry…" I begin an apology.  
"Just…" Sarah says, her voice shaking, "Just leave…"

I turn back to the daylight outside, slowly leaving the enveloping darkness of the house. As I go, I hear Sarah saying, "It's just like old times…"

Now I've got two people to apologise to, I'm really messing everything up…


	9. Chapter 9

_**Sorry for the small chapter, had to get some work done for school that I couldn't put aside any longer, expect a few 2000 word paragraph in future :D**_

_**As always, reviews are welcomed, and taken into consideration  
The review about**__**putting more of Pete in, I'm planning on doing that very soon :)  
^See!? Reviews get you what you want out of the series!**_

As I step out into the brightness of the clear sky and midday sun, my head throbs.

"Never again," I say to myself, clutching at my forehead, pledging to never drink for a long while.

As I look around the street, I take in a detailed list of what I need to do.

"Piss off Zoey, check…" I begin, "Piss off Sarah, check."

I haven't yet spoken to Coach or Ellis, although I did see Nick when I woke up in the truck. So I decide that it would be best if I went and found out what was happening with Coach. The thought of confronting Ellis after what happened with Zoey last night scares me, so I decide to steer clear of Ellis for the time being.

Heading off in search of Coach, I feel my head beginning to clear. It could be because of the fresh air or the sunlight but all I know is… it feels good to finally be getting over it.

I find Coach throwing some zombies from around the street onto the lower parts of the wall.  
"What are you doing that for?" I ask him, wondering if he is trying to knock down the wall with a corpse.  
"Well you said there are people on the other side right?" Coach begins, "So if we show that we can help them out, maybe they'll be nice to us and give us supplies."

I consider that he actually has a valid point.

"Well they built this whole wall, I doubt five or so extra corpses will do much good in the long run," I remind Coach, gesturing to the size of the giant wall.  
"Well hey, you never know," Coach says, his spirits remaining positive.

I can already tell that to keep arguing my point will result in a full scale argument, which just means pissing Coach off too. So instead of sticking around, I nod at him, turn, and head off in search of something I can do to make myself useful.

Passing by the truck, I end up coming face to face with Nick, who is jumping down from the front seat after successfully cleaning his gun so it shines in the sunlight.

"What's been happening Aaron?" He asks me.  
"Eh, not much," I respond, quickly passing him.  
"You know," Nick begins, "I can tell when something's wrong.

I stop and turn to look at him; my eyes begin to well up slightly with the tiniest bit of moisture.

"You have no idea what it's like," I say, turning and continuing my walk down the street.

Nick watches me go, I wish I could talk to him about it, he was this security about him, it makes me feel like I CAN trust him with anything, I just know it's not a smart idea… that and I don't like the idea of sharing all my problems. The more he knows about me, the more he could use against me if he ever decided to try and rebel against us.

How could I even explain to Nick my family problems, the fact that Sarah and I can't keep a conversation going for five minutes without an argument… How could I explain that with everyone I talk to, an argument begins to form, I wouldn't be able to explain it without arguing with him over it.

I suddenly feel like a complete jerk when I realise that I haven't even talked to Pete about his bite yet. I didn't even ask him, I was too busy getting angry at Sarah. I make a mental note '_Talk to Pete, without an argument this time'._

As I walk down the street, I see Zoey sitting on a doorstep a few houses down. As I approach her, she looks at me, with an emotionless face, staring through me as though I don't even exist. I manage a smile, but she only sneers and looks away.

"I guess now's not the time to talk to her about it," I say to myself.


	10. Chapter 10

Walking in the fresh air alone is really relaxing, I take a moment to gasp deeply, filling my lungs with the sweetness of it.  
"Never again," I promise myself proactively, reminding myself that I will never do anything like I did last night with the alcohol.

I wander for a good thirty minutes, the whole time thinking about how I could make things better with Sarah, and more importantly, Zoey. It's odd that I would think that, believing that some girl is more important than my sister to me, although that 'some girl' is the girl that I seemed to have something special with.

What could I really consider as 'something special', what would anything consider special during this time? I guess I could ask Nick, it seems like I could trust him with anything.

My thoughts are cut short when I hear something, so distant that I question if it was actually there. I begin to walk again, but that's when I hear it, louder this time, and I'm sure that it's real. I'm hearing a girl, screaming, I turn to run back to the group and raise an alarm, but then I realise just how long I've been walking, I don't even recognise the street that I'm on anymore.

I decide that it's probably smart to hide, and let the noises pass, but the screaming makes me feel a pang of curiosity, and it's that curiosity that throws me into a jogging pace, running towards the source of the noise.

As the noise gets closer, I can hear that it's only one woman. I divert off the road and leap onto a fence, hauling myself upwards and onto the roof of a single-story house to get a better view. I turn to the source of the noise and my jaw drops; I take a while for it to sink in before gasping. Zombies are chasing one girl, about twenty metres behind her, a whole horde of them; it seems like a whole army! They're packed shoulder to shoulder, covering the entire street behind her; they seem to go on forever, collapsing into the street like a flash flood.

My face goes cold when I put the picture together and realise that she's running towards me, leading the whole horde towards me, and they're only about fifty metres away!

"Help me," the girl screams with a Russian accent, noticing me standing on the roof.

I stand gawking. What am I meant to do, how can I help with this!?

"Run!" I yell. Yeah, that's sure to help her Aaron…

It seems to work however; she seems to gain a burst of speed, clearing the distance between us at an alarming rate. Her chest is heaving as she gasps for air, I can't tell how long she's been running, and she has sweat flowing down her forehead like a river.

She looks up at me, desperation flaring up in her bright green eyes. I stare mesmerised as she begins the last ten metres between me and the house. She gets almost right underneath me before it snaps in my head that she is going to need my help.

I collapse to my knees, holding my hand down over the side of the roof towards her. She sprints the remaining distance with a newfound vigour, the last step of her marathon. Leaping upwards, I feel her thin hand gripping desperately at mine, but she doesn't get a grip and falls back to the ground. Her hand reminds me of Zoey's as she falls back down to the ground, I hear a whimper which brings me back to the moment.

I see the girl leap back up towards my hand, I reach as far as I can downward and my fingers grip hers, yet she slips through my grip and falls back down. The zombies begin to step onto the yard behind her, tears form in her eyes and she just stares up at me.

"Don't give up, you can't!" I yell to her.

She jumps again, her teeth grit and her eyes close, a look of sheer pain. I get a grip on her arm, but she slips back down to the ground, her skin is too slippery from her sweat to get a good grip.

She hits the ground and slumps towards it, letting her legs collapse out from underneath her. Falling to the ground, she begins to sob.

I don't know what makes me want to do this, but I can't just sit here and watch someone die. I leap off the roof, down onto the grass, falling beside her as I do. I stumble to my feet, the zombies closing in behind me, only about five metres away, but struggling past each other, desperately clawing the air to be the first one to taste human flesh.

I feel fear climbing itself into me again, but I force it backwards, I'm not just about to die right now. I throw my arms under the girl, lifting her up almost effortlessly. I wonder if I really have gotten that strong, but then I realise how thin she is, another quality that reminds me of Zoey.

I shake my head to dispel all thoughts of Zoey, focussing only on the Russian girl. I put my arms on her waist and lift her off the ground, she panics, but at least she still understands what's going on. She scrambles upwards along the side of the house, I hold her as far upwards as my arms will allow, yet nothing happens, and she doesn't lift herself up.

I begin to panic, the zombies are closing in now, only a few more seconds and all my effort will be for nothing. Then I hear her shout, "I've got it!"

I let go of her, she swings towards the wall and for a second I think she's going to fall, but she finds the strength to pull herself up.

"Run!" She manages to shake, her voice quivering from exhaustion.

As I take off around the house, I feel a zombie's hand on the back of my shirt. My heart begins to pound as I think about how close I got to being eaten. When I hear the girl shout, I can't stop a smile from forming, '_What useless advice' _I think to myself, remembering that I had yelled the same thing to her while she was running from the zombies.

I find myself in the back yard; I look backwards and notice that the zombies are finding it impossible to file past the side of the house in an orderly manner; giving me time to climb the fence and get my balance.

I run along the fence, finding a spot that is close to the roof, and I jump. The girl watches, biting a fingernail as I leave the fence. I feel like I'm suspended for ages as zombies begin to flow into the backyard and find their place underneath my flight path. I know that if I don't make it, I'm not going to have another chance. I feel myself beginning to plummet downwards, but my chest collides with the drainpipe that signals the edge where the roof joins the wall. I scramble around, my hands frantically searching for a place to grip as I slide backwards towards the zombies below.

My hand finds a place to hold, but it's not enough to pull me up, I've fallen too far down, I find myself suspended, my feet swaying beneath me, coaxing the zombies to reach up for me. I don't know how long I can hold onto the roof, but I doubt I can hold it longer than the zombies can wait for food.

I wince as my hand begins to cramp, the pain spikes through my forearm like a hot blade piercing the skin. I feel my grip slipping, my hand releases the shingle and I begin to slide. My mouth begins a shout, but I don't have the breath to shout. Instead, I silently fall.

My hand slips past the railing, I feel a zombie latch its bloody rotting hands onto my leg. I brace myself for the painful biting, but instead, my arm jars as it snags on something. My eyes snap open and I notice a strained teenage face looking down at me, green eyes desperately begging me not to give up.

I smile and shake my leg, booting the zombie in the face and kicking myself free of its grip. I throw my other hand up onto the railing, pulling myself up along with the superhuman effort from the girl. I wonder where she found the reserve of energy, but when I notice her whole body shaking with the effort of lifting me, I don't bother to ask. I realise that she's giving everything she has to not letting me die.

As I get my legs onto the roof, I stand up and notice that I'm slightly taller than the girl who saved me. No words are exchanged; instead, we both spend a few seconds gasping for a full breath. My arm still stings from the pain of gripping the roof. I see the girl begin to collapse, her whole body shaking. I grab her elbows holding her up. Her head slumps and her eyes close. She falls forward and I catch her before she falls.

I lay her down gently, sitting beside her, finally able to get a good look at who it actually is. The zombies' growl and shriek below, the noises completely surrounding the house. I sigh and slump my shoulders, I know that we're going to be here for a while.

I look at the girl, her breath coming in heavily, her face drained of its colour. I can't even imagine what she's been through. Her hair is blonde and wavy, flowing down her face and drenched with sweat. I brush some out of her face to get a better look at the rest of her features. Everything about her face seems to be pointed, giving her an elf like appearance, even her ears seem to point slightly at the tips.

Her clothes are tattered and have dry patches of blood caked into them. The black of her dress has to draw a lot of heat. I realise that she's wearing a dress and stop.  
"Why would she be wearing a dress and tights?" I ask myself out loud.  
She chooses that moment to regain consciousness and startles me, saying in her thick accent, "It's easier to run, I survived before didn't I?"

Her eyes remain closed but she smiles. I notice that she has braces; it takes me back to the time before all the zombies, when dentistry was still a concern.

The girl suddenly sits up, her eyes snapping open.  
"What's wrong?" I ask her.  
"Where is my Kristin!?" She cries out.  
"Who is Kristin?" I ask, a puzzled expression crossing my face, though I can already assume who she is.  
"She's my sister!" She yells.


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapters may slow down just a tad over the next week or two as I struggle through the tediousness of assignments and exams, all the joys of being a teenager! Still, Chapter 12 is well underway, here you are now, with Chapter 11 :)**_

I stare, hopelessly watching as tears spring to the girls eyes.  
"Was she…" I start, but stop before I suggest the thought of her sister being eaten alive.  
"No," The girl says, beginning to cry, "I left her to go and get food."

Her voice starts to shake.

"You don't need to continue," I tell her, "I think I understand,"  
"It would just kill me to lose her," The girl says, "She's all I've got left!"

I think about losing my family, Sarah and Pete being the only two that I've got left. She looks at me and instantly knows what I'm thinking about.

"Do you have anyone left?" She asks me, her voice regaining some clarity.  
"My sister too, and my little brother Pete," I start to tell her, "but Pete is…"

I stop, I think about telling her that my little brother has been bitten, but I decide against it, it's probably safer the less people that know about it.

She notices my pause and questions me further, "Pete is what?"  
"It's nothing," I respond quickly.

She nods, but her face shows a great look of curiosity as she looks away.

"Okay," She begins, hauling herself quickly up onto her feet, "let's get going."  
"Woah hold on," I say, catching her as she begins to collapse, "you're in no condition to be doing anything at the moment, just sit down, have a rest, relax."

The second I say relax, I regret it, and she begins a verbal onslaught.  
"I'm not going to relax while my sister is out there alone with zombies everywhere you-," She begins yelling.

I block out the yelling, I've had enough of people yelling at me for one day. When I start listening again, she's gotten to cursing me in what I assume is Russian. I let her get it all out, as long as I don't understand it, I don't have a reason to complain. She's gone through a lot of stress and the best thing to do is just leave her.

Her insults go on for a few minutes, when she finishes yelling, she sighs, collapsing backwards onto the roof. Silence follows, except the constant moaning and screaming from the zombies surrounding the house.

"Sorry," She says, "I don't know why I'm yelling at you, you saved my life."  
"Well, what are we sitting around for, let's get going," I say, jumping to my feet.

A grin spreads across her face and she begins to stand again, her legs shaking as she does so. I grab her arm to support her while she stands. She smiles as I do, but I can't find the happiness to smile back, I realise that we'll have to find a way off the roof, and the zombies won't leave, not until we come down.

When she is standing straight, I let her go slowly; she shivers slightly but stays upright, slowly beginning to walk. By the time I've found a way off the roof, she's already walking around perfectly fine.

The girl says something, I don't pay any attention, my eyes are fixed on something else.  
"Is that so?" I respond.  
"Yes," She says, jumping towards me and waving a hand in front of my face.  
My eyes flicker and I focus on her, turning and laughing casually.  
"I said that my name is Nikita," She says again, curtsying slightly.  
"Aaron," I begin, extending a hand, "And the pleasure's all mine."  
Nikita looks at me confused, gripping my hand softly as I shake hers.  
"Is this how you normally introduce yourself?" Nikita questions me.

I allow myself to let go of her hand. Disregarding her question, I point to what caught my eye.

"What is it?" She asks me, looking to where I am pointing.  
"A bike! We can outrun them on it," I say excitedly.  
"There's only one?" Nikita asks me, though I can't tell if it's a question or a statement because of her accent.  
"See those things?" I ask her, pointing to the metal rod on the back wheels, "I used to have them on my bike before all of this, Pete would stand on the back and-,"  
Nikita cuts me off, "I'm not standing on the back of a bike, what if it breaks?"  
"You're not that fat," I joke, she glares at me, I cough and continue, "Well I guess I could stand on the back."  
"No, I can't…" Nikita begins, but stops mid-sentence.  
"Can't what?" I ask her.  
"It's nothing," She responds quickly, no doubt mocking me from before.  
"Ok, how is this going to work, you tell me where I'm going from the back then?" I ask, starting up a plan.  
"Wait, what's going on?" Nikita asks, so I sigh and go back to the start.

"Well, we'll jump down off the roof; I'll run over to the bike, you jump the fence over there. I'll throw the bike over while you run it to the front of the house. I'll catch up to you, and from there we can make off down the street, hopefully avoiding any more zombie hordes." I tell her.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" She asks me.

I laugh, "Better than anything else we can come up with."

I walk to the edge of the roof, looking down as I get close. The zombies below are layered up against the walls, eagerly reaching up towards us, beckoning me to become one of them. Nikita grabs my hand as she walks up alongside me, but it doesn't remind me of Zoey, the way she grabs it is different, it's kind of like a 'good-luck'.

I smile at her, and nod, taking the first leap off the roof, letting go of her hand and throwing myself as far over the zombies as I can. Nikita leaps after me, clearing almost as much distance as I do. The zombies turn and scramble about, falling over each other in a desperate attempt to snatch us out of the sky.

The ground quickly approaches; I bend my knees and prepare myself for a hard impact. All I can do is hope that Nikita keeps to the plan and doesn't bolt; even that she doesn't break her leg when she hits the ground.

Time seems to slow down for the last second of the fall, I think about Sarah and Pete, Zoey and Ellis, Nick and Coach. It could all end here, but it won't, I won't let it.


	12. Chapter 12

_**The chapters are starting to get a little longer, I'm starting to write more in one sitting than I should be, which makes the chapters ramble for a bit rather than getting to the point, sorry about that haha.**_

_**Any reviews are much appreciated, Thank you!**_

I hit the ground hard and feel like I'm about to collapse. I quickly stand and find myself winded, but choose to ignore it and sprint for the bike instead. I find Nikita taking the lead, even after all the running she had to do beforehand. I turn and see the zombies, they are scrambling over each other in a confused rabble, desperately trying to reach us. I smile as I notice that they are giving us extra time in their haste.

I reach the bike, Nikita leaps onto the wall, throwing herself against it and dragging herself up it with a groan. When she disappears over the wall, I grab the bike in the centre of the frame, some rust coming off on my hands.I pray the bike still works when I realise how worn it looks.

"You ready for it?" I shout over the wall, starting to haul it above my head. When I don't hear a response, I begin to panic, but then I hear her yell.  
"Yeah, go ahead, quickly!"

I slide the bike over the wall, feeling a pulling on it from the other side. I let go and see it disappear, hitting the ground with a loud clanging of metal. I turn and look at the zombies. They have started to regain some composure and the front few are moving towards me hastily, no doubt they're hungry to finally get their hands on the person from the rooftop.

I turn and start to climb the wall, but something buried under the overgrown grass catches my eye. I see a skateboard, and quickly throw myself down off the wall, grabbing the board. I don't know what I'll use it for, but something tells me not to leave it behind, so I don't.

I throw the skateboard over the wall, making sure it isn't going to land where Nikita did. Then I jump onto the wall myself, scrabbling with my legs to fling myself up and over. I hear a growling right behind me, so I don't look back, but instead, I use it to get myself to the top of the wall in an instant.

When I land in the yard next door, Nikita is running the bike around to the front of the house, but two zombies have taken to following her. I pick up the skateboard from where it landed and run after her, tucking it under my arm. The zombies turn when they hear me, but I see that she never even noticed them. Instead of calling out, I let her get the bike to the driveway. I unsling the skateboard from where I was holding it. I grip the board end with my hands, without breaking my stride, I sprint past the zombies, passing by the right hand side and smashing the board over one of their heads. I ignore the sound of bones shattering as the board destroys the zombie's skull, continuing after Nikita to the front of the house.

As I get around to the front, I see that she's holding the bike upright and looks relieved that I made it around the corner.  
"Jump on!" I yell to her.  
"You do it," She responds.  
"Hold this then," I say, throwing the skateboard to her and getting onto the bike.

Nikita climbs quickly onto the back of the bike and I feel her resting the skateboard on my right shoulder. I look down at it, begging that she realised what was on it, but she had no idea, and I saw a foul smelling blood running down my shoulder. I wince and look away, trying not to breathe in the disgusting smell of rotting.

I start pedalling, the bike is incredibly hard to get going because of how flat the wheels are. My legs start burning after no time at all. I look down and notice a pump attatched to the side of the frame, I make a mental note to pump the tires up.

"Go left here," Nikita says, leaning in so she doesn't have to shout at me.

I slow down so the wind isnt whipping past our ears.

"Why don't you get on? I'll stand on the back, you know where you're going," I say.  
"You're already on, why bother changing," she says quickly. I can tell she's lying but don't want to know why, so I don't dwell on it.

I quickly glance behind me as we round the corner, none of the zombies had figured out where we had gone, so the street was empty apart from the occasional one or two zombies. I cross my fingers and hope that all the noise Nikita had made had drawn all of the zombies out of hiding.

I find it difficult enough to ride a bike with flat tyres, but after a while of dodging the occasional corpse on the floor or pile of debris, my legs can't take any more and I've started to sweat quite intensely.

I pull the bike onto a driveway and stop, Nikita jumps off the back as I collapse onto the dying grass. The blood running down my shoulder starts to seep into the dirt. I pant, trying to regain my breath. Nikita stands above me, covering me in her shadow.

"Is that as far as you can go?" she asks curiously.  
"My fitness isn't what it once was you know," I laugh back.

Quite ironic when I think about it, if anything, running from zombies would have made me stronger and more enduring.

"Your turn," I grin.  
"I can't do that, I've been running, remember?" Nikita reminds me.  
"You seem to be coping just fine right now," I point out.

At that exact moment, she wobbles and collapses onto the grass beside me, but I don't buy it for a second.

"Fine," I sigh, "I'll keep riding, but at least help me pump the tyres up."

Her version of help is a lot different to mine. She lifts me off the ground, I almost slip with the layer of perspiration on my wrist. I walk over to where I left the bike and detatch the pump from the frame. Nikita stands and watches as I take the cap off the front tyre and begin to pump.

"That's some good helping Nikita," I tease her.  
"What do you expect me to do?" She laughs.  
"I expect you to do this while I check out the skateboard," I say honestly.

She looks at me, confused. I stand up and stretch my back.

"You can't tell me you've never pumped a bike tyre before?" I question her.  
"I've never had to," She responds quickly.  
"Well here, just keep pumping this," I start instructing her, "Squeeze the wheel every now and again, you'll know when it's full because you wont be able to squeeze the wheel in."  
"Easy enough I guess," she says, getting down in front of the tyre and starting to pump slowly.

I pick up the skateboard from the grass where Nikita dropped it and start to feel the wheels. They all spin really easily, my concern is how weak the wood is. It can't be too weak as I smashed a zombie's skull in, but I won't really be sure until I test it. I sit on the board for about a minute, rolling backwards and forwards while Nikita gets more and more frustrated with the bike pump.

When I'm satisfied that the board won't break under my weight, I go to Nikita and put my hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She looks up at me, her face flustered.

"This bloody thing isnt filling up!" She yells, rage boiling at the bike pump.  
"Here, calm down, there's no use bringing the zombies down on us is there," I warn her, "you just relax for a bit, I'll do it."

She jumps at the opportunity to get away from the pump, which she was sure had it out for her. Sitting down on the grass, she starts to pick some of the brown dry flora out of the ground.

I hold in a wave of nausea as I kneel down to start pumping again, I catch a whiff of rotting smell from my shoulder where Nikita put the board.

"You know," I say, "you didn't have to get this zombie shit all over me." I point to my shoulder.  
"Oh," Nikita says, looking away, "yeah I didn't notice that."  
"It's disgusting, how about I put some on you?" I ask teasingly.  
"I'll be the bigger person about it," Nikita says, "and won't complain."  
"I'm sure you would, you're complaining about not wanting to ride a bike," I remind her.

She doesn't respond, I feel that I've struck a nerve, but I don't keep pressing it. Now's not the time to start arguments with people.

I finish pumping the tyres in complete silence, it only takes me a few minutes.

"You'll be wanting to stand on the back then?" I offer her, making her grin slightly.  
"Yeah, I'll give you the directions, not too far to go really," She says.  
"And hold the board the other way this time," I remind her with a joking tone.  
"Why did you even bring it?" She asks me.  
"I'm planning ahead for when we get Kirstie, I doubt three people can fit on this bike," I say.

I realise that I assumed we'd all be sticking together when we save Kirstie, but I try to brush it off like it didn't matter. Nikita realised it too however.  
"We're coming with you then, after we get her?" Nikita asks me.  
"If you want to," I begin honestly, "I mean, I wouldn't mind. We've got a big group, capable adults, we even have my little brother Pete, it'd give Pete someone to talk to."  
"Kirstie as well," Nikita says, beaming at the thought of another kid for Kirstie to be able to befriend.

I choose not to mention that Pete got bitten, which makes me realise again that I've been neglecting him ever since Zoey showed up. I kick myself silently and promise myself that I'll talk to him a bit more when I get back to the group.

I round the last corner, Nikita pointing me around to the right. I pull up outside the house, kicking the rusty bike stand down and stepping off, my legs don't hurt nearly as much after pumping the tyres up.

Nikita drops the board beside the bike with a thud.  
"This is where I told her to stay," Nikita tells me.  
"Let's go get her then, after you," I say, gesturing into the open doorway.

We search every room, sticking together in case something jumps one of us. Nikita starts to get more and more frantic for every room that we check. She even begins to whine when the last few rooms show no sign of her.

"I told her to stay right here!" Nikita whimpers, tears forming in her eyes.  
"Please don't cry," I say, "We'll find her, I'm not leaving until we do."

She smiles when I say that. I look down, breaking the eye contact, and notice a flash of pink disappear under the bed. It was so quick that I barely noticed it, I question if it actually existed, but then Nikita turns and begins to leave the room, no doubt going to re-check the rooms she had already looked in time and time again.

I turn to follow her, but I head a quiet voice. I grab Nikita's arm and stop her, gesturing for her to be quiet.

A small voice calls out, coming from under the bed, "Nikki, is that you?"


	13. Chapter 13

I see Nikita's face light up when she hears the voice coming from under the bed. She dives to the floor and starts crying with joy, squealing something in Russian. The only word I can pick out of her sentence is the name 'Kirstie'. I smile when I guess that it's her sister, and my suspicion is confirmed when a small, bloodstained hand reaches out from under the bed and grabs onto Nikita's. The girls scrambles quickly out from under the bed and is caught by Nikita in a sisterly embrace.

I notice that the girl looks the same age as Pete and I start to worry. I don't want anyone to find out about Pete's bite, but I don't want to ignore it either. The more people that are oblivious to it, the more dangerous it becomes.

Kirstie looks at me, saying something in Russian that I don't understand.  
Nikita responds with, "This is Aaron, he saved my life."  
"And he doesn't speak Russian," I add.

Kirstie laughs and dives into my stomach, hugging me around the waist.  
"Thankyou for saving Nikki," The young girl says, tears forming in her eyes too.

The girl is wearing a frilly pink dress, not something I'd recommend a girl wearing during a zombie apocalypse. I guess Nikita is trying to keep her pure, and not corrupt by a strict dress code of violence. I rest my hands on her shoulders and smile at her, getting down on my knee so I can look her in the eyes. Her face is covered with blood and it smells foul. I wipe some of the blood off her face and smell it.

"How did you get covered in blood?" I ask Kirstie.  
"When Nikki left me, they broke in and attacked me," The young girl replies.  
"Oh god," Nikita says, diving down beside Kirstie, "are you ok?"  
"Yeah, I got them, just like you told me to," Kirstie said, smiling up at her older sister.

I couldn't help but smile, her courage reminds me of Pete's courage, making me feel even worse about neglecting him so much recently.

"Well…" I cough awkwardly, breaking the silence, "I'm off then, good day to you."  
"Good day?" Nikita laughs.  
"Come with us!" Kirstie says.  
"No Kirstie, Aaron here has a group to get back to." Nikita tells her.

I see tears start to form in Kirstie's eyes, I doubt she understands why anyone would walk away alone.

"We'll come with you!" Kirstie cries.

I look at Nikita, she stares at me with a blank expression.

"There's no reason you can't," I say. Kirstie lights up like a christmas tree. "But my group is half an hour away, can you ride a bike for that long?"

Kirstie looks down and starts kicking the ground. "I don't know how to ride a bike," She says quietly.  
"That's ok, Nikita can ride it, you can stand on the back," I respond cheerfully.  
"I uh-," Nikita starts.  
"Nikki can't ride a bike!" Kirstie wails childishly.

I try to surpress a smile, but I can't help one from breaking out on my face.

"Don't laugh," Nikita says, averting her eyes downwards, "our parents never taught either of us how to ride a bicycle."  
"I could always teach you, it's not that hard you know, you just push your feet on the pedals," I respond casually.  
"Sounds easier than it looks," Nikita responds, her mind drifting back to when she was riding on the back of the bike over here.  
"Here, come on," I say, gesturing them to follow me and leading them out of the dark house into the daylight.

I pick up the skateboard and put it on the road, standing on it to get a feel for it's balance while I explain to Nikita how to ride a bike. The second I stand on the board, my years of skating, before all this happened, comes flooding back to me.

Nikita awkwardly climbs onto the bike, sitting down on the seat slowly.  
"This seat is weird," Nikita complains.  
"What do you mean?" I ask.  
"It's uncomfortable," She says.

I laugh, "You'll get used to it."

I spend the next few minutes walking alongside Nikita, holding the left handlebar while she tried to keep her balance.

"It's easier when you're moving, trust me, much easier," I tell her, "but if you don't know what you're doing and I let you start off moving, you're going to fall off, and that wouldn't be fun."  
"I'm going to stand on the back, with Nikki?" Kirstie complains.  
"You'll be fine," I tell Kirstie, "Now I'm going to let go of the handlebars, give it a go," I say to Nikita.  
"Are you sure?" Nikita asks, her voice shaking and her face looking terrified.  
"It's just a bike, everyone learned how to ride one-," I start, but stop, "Well… almost everyone learned to ride one as a kid."

I let go of the handlebars, Nikita starts pedalling, her legs shaking as she meets the resistance of the pedals. Her speed slowly increases as I watch her taking off down the street. I smile and Kirstie laughs childishly, clapping for her sister. I see Nikita starting to wobble about and I panic, but she starts to turn and I realise that that's all she was trying to do.

When she comes past, She squeezes the hand brakes, skidding down to a stop.

"Woo!" Kirstie cheers.  
"Well done, you did really well for your first time," I congratulate her.  
"That was really fun!" Nikita says, smiling.  
"Just remember," I warn her, "you're not riding it for fun, you're using it to get away."  
"You're a buzzkill arent you?" Nikita laughs.

I see a few zombies starting to shuffle into the end of the street in the distance.  
"Time to go," I warn the two, picking Kirstie up and putting her on the back of the bicycle, "just hold onto Nikita."  
"What about you?" Kirstie asks, looking at me desperately.  
"I brought this for a reason," I say triumphantly, crouching down and picking the skateboard up.  
"Can you even ride one of those?" Nikita asks me.  
"Now's not the time to tell me you can!" I complain.  
"I can't, I was just wondering." Nikita says.

I throw the skateboard down and leap onto it quickly, pushing myself around for a few seconds. When I'm sure that I've got a good feel for the balance of the board, I stop and turn to Nikita and Kirstie.

"Follow me, keep up, don't get grabbed," I list.  
"And don't fall off," Nikita adds.  
"Right," I conclude, turning to take off down the street.

I take a good look while I'm skating downhill to gain a bit of speed. More and more zombies are passing by the end of the street. I can already tell that it's going to be difficult to get past them, but at least I can tell that it's the horde from before. If we can pass them, we might have a smooth trip back to the group.

I put my hands down by my knees to keep my center of balance closer to the ground, that's when I feel the hilt of something against my leg. I look down and my eyes widen when I see a cleaver tied to my leg. I completely forgot that I had brought it with me. I draw it out, gripping it in my right hand. If I have to fight any of them off, I can tell it'd be easier with this.

Nikita rides up alongside me, her hair flailing behind her flicking off flakes of dried blood. Kirstie's looks so similar, except the blood in hers is wet, which concerns me.

"Where'd you get that?" Nikita asks.  
"I had it this whole time," I answer, still shocked that I hadn't noticed it.  
"And you didn't notice?" Nikita presses.  
"That's exactly what I'm surprised about.," I say.

We approach the end of the street, Nikita stays by my side, I dodge the occasional zombie by swerving to the side. When I look up from curving around a corpse, I see a wrecked car, it's frame completely rusted. Nikita has already moved to avoid it, but I wont have enough time.

I do something insane that I wouldn't have ever tried before. I don't even know why I do it, but I start to speed up, aiming myself directly for the car. When the car is right in front of me, Nikita shouts out. I jump, putting my hands on the roof of the car, throwing myself up onto the roof of the car. I slide along the top of the car, pushing myself upwards at the end of it and flicking my legs down underneath me.

When I slide down off the end of the car, the board comes out right underneath me, right where I assumed it would be. I fall the final distance, bending my knees and bracing myself for the landing. When I hit the board, I maintain my balance, only shaking a little bit in the first second.

My body keeps pushing the board as though nothing happened, but I'm completely shocked about how that even happened.

Nikita comes up alongside me again, completely shocked just like I am.  
"How did you do that?" She asks.  
"I have no idea…" I respond, "But you should probably stay behind me from here."  
"Why's that?" Nikita asks, thinking that I'm doubting her ability.  
"Because I have the cleaver," I say, "…and I can jump cars." I add slyly at the end.

When we reach the end of the street, I start wheeling my hand, preparing to cleave the head off any zombie that comes near me. Once again, I'm shocked at myself, I'm not scared of the zombies, but I'm actually taking charge of the situation.

When the first of the zombies begin to notice us, there are blood-curdling howls from the front few rows. I keep my head clear and duck quickly, narrowly avoiding a swiping zombie's arm. When it hits Nikita, she yells out, but luckily it didn't grab her. I remind myself that I should clear the way because it's harder for her to dodge things that I can avoid.

A few zombie's take similar swipes at me, but I cut their hands of, several at the wrist and one at the elbow. The rotting bodies make it incredibly easy to sever limbs thankfully.

As we continue to travel through the horde, I notice that the end is in sight, I assume that more than half of the zombies had cleared off, otherwise the road ahead would be a river of zombies. Nikita must have seen the end too as she races ahead of me.

"Nikita!" I shout out, "Come back!"  
"I can see the end!" She calls back to me.

I devote all my attention to catching up to her, digging my leg hard down into the bitumen to thrust the board forward. I see a zombie dive at the bike and feel the blood drain from my face, she gets past it because of how fast she is travelling which relieves me. Then I realise that the zombie fell in my path. I dig my heel into the back of the board and leap off, flicking it up into the air under me. Landing back on the board after I clear the zombie.

Nikita has pushed her way out of the horde and is now waiting at the end for me. I sigh a breath of relief, but I remember to tell her not to do anything like that again, Kirstie was close to being grabbed off the back when that zombie leapt at the bike.

"That was really dangerous," I tell her, catching up and slowing down.  
"I got out didn't I?" Nikita says.  
"You nearly didn't…" I quietly say.

Kirstie yells and I turn to see what she is looking at. The zombie horde has turned to see where we went, and is starting an approach towards us.

"We'd better get going," Nikita says.  
"Stay near me this time," I warn her, "don't ride off like that."

We quickly make off for the group, I point Nikita in the right direction. There are no more zombies for the entire trip, meaning Nikita never bolted off.

When I get back to the street where the group was, I see something that makes my legs no numb. The truck is gone.

"Shit…" I say

"Holy shit," Nikita echos.

I look at her and realise that she's talking about the wall of zombies. But I jump off the board, picking it up, and I start looking around for anyone, though everyone seems to be gone without a trace of warning.


	14. Chapter 14

_**A quick notice:**_

_**The reason that I haven't uploaded anything recently is because I had a holiday off school for a few weeks, just the standard holiday business. So I put my writing on a halt to have a completely laid back holiday. I'm back into it strong though, here's chapter 14, and I'm already working on 15 as you read!**_

_**Review responses:**_

_**TheXpertnoob: Thank you! I hadn't even thought of teaching Aaron how to shoot a gun, thanks for the idea, I'll definately include it in the near future!**_

_**Cas-Cas17: Thankyou for the support, I've been doing my best to get all of Aaron's emotions typed out as he has them.**_

_**Ludvig Pootis: Thanks for the support :) I'm planning on getting a lot more attention on Pete now with the introduction of Kirstie (A teaser of what's to come!)**_

Nikita slows the bike quickly after I come to a stop. Kirstie leaps off the back and starts walking towards the wall.

"Kirstie, don't go near that," Nikita says sternly.  
"Oh don't worry about it, they're all dead," I say, making Nikita glare at me.  
"You knew about this?" She yells.  
"This is where my group was," I say slowly, making sure not to piss her off.  
"Where are they now?" Kirstie asks curiously.  
"That's what I want to find out," I say, picking up the skateboard and starting to look for them.

I start searching behind houses, I cant find anything, not a trace of them ever being here. Then I see something on a doorstep. A red hoodie. When I get closer to it, I realise that it's Zoey's. There's no reason she would just leave it behind, so I rush back to Nikita and Kirstie.

As I approach, Nikita looks at me as though she doesn't recognise me.  
"What's wrong?" She asks.  
"Get your sister and hide," I hiss.  
"What's going on?" Her voice shakes, no louder than a whisper.  
I show her the hoodie, "This was Zoey's, she's a member of my group, there's no reason she would have left it behind."  
"What does that mean?" She questions, getting incredibly nervous.  
"It means," I say, my eyes darting around, "that she hasn't left."

Kirstie wonders what's going on and comes running over to join in.

"There's people up there!" She shrieks.

Nikita clamps her hand over Kirstie's mouth, her eyes bulge but her hand doesn't avert from where she has it pointed to. I follow her bloodstained finger and look up to see two figures standing on top of the wall aiming guns at us. I feel my hands go cold.

"When I say run, you two run to that house over there," I say, indicating the house that Sarah and Pete had cleared out. "I'll make a distraction so they focus on me instead of you two."

While Nikita is looking at me like I've gone mad, I hear a twig snap behind me. I wheel around, pulling the cleaver off the side of my leg. I'm greeted with a sight that actually makes me smile. Nick is standing in the shadows of the building I was pointing Nikita and Kirsten to, aiming a gun at us.

I stand slowly, raising my hands into the air, I signal for the other two to do the same.  
"Nick," I hiss, "It's me, Aaron."  
"You know this guy?" Nikita whispers.  
I ignore her and continue, "What's going on here?"

He raises his hand off the trigger to his lips, signalling for us to stay silent. He then gestures for us to come to him. I don't hesitate to start moving, but Nikita and Kirstie take a bit more convincing.

"Come on!" I coax them under my breath.

Nick hits me over the back of the head with just enough strength to agitate me.

"What the he-," I start, but he clamps his hand over my mouth, his grip like iron.  
"Shut up!" He silences me.

I look back in complete silence, Nikita and Kirstie have began to walk over to us. When they make it to the shadow of the house, Nick gestures for us all to follow him, he doesn't seem to be as shaken by the new arrivals as they are of him.

We follow him around to the back of the house, where he opens the security door, it creaks open and I hear a rustling noise inside. We all follow him in a single file into the house. I notice Nikita is holding Kirstie's hand and I hope that Kirstie doesn't start crying for any reason.

When we are all inside, the door closes slowly behind us. Nick stands up from the crouch he was in and signals his hand around the corner. I hear a sigh of relief and then I see something that surprises me.

Pete steps around the corner, a pistol in hand. He sees me and smiles.  
"Aaron!" he can't resist calling out, sprinting towards me.  
Nick echoes his hiss, making Pete look down and stop running.  
"Sorry," he apologises.

"What the heck is going on?" I whisper to Nick.  
"Those people attacked us," Nick responds quietly.  
"Attacked!?" I gasp.  
"Well, not exactly," Nick begins telling me, "they took our truck, most of our supplies, and they grabbed Zoey while they could."  
"So where's the rest?" I ask.  
"Well, Coach and Ellis are up on the wall, keeping their eyes on the surroundings so we don't get jumped again," Nick says.  
"…and Sarah?" I press, dreading the answer.  
"Follow me," Nick says, averting his eyes and turning around, beginning to walk into the darkness.

I follow him, feeling butterflies in my stomach, I'm really nervous as to why Nick isn't telling me what's going on. Pete walks alongside me, Nikita and Kirstie follow behind, still cautious and on edge, ready to retaliate if anything happens.

"Where'd you get that gun?" I ask Pete.  
"Nick gave it to me," Pete says, smiling and looking over his shoulder at the new arrivals.  
"Did he now," I ask rhetorically, "well I'll be letting him know what I think about his choice."  
"Aaron!" Pete whines childishly, Nick hisses backwards for us to be quiet.

We approach a closed door and Nick stops, turning to face us. His eyes are shadowed by the darkness.  
"Whatever happens next, you can't let it cloud your judgement Aaron," He says sternly.  
"What's going on?" I press.  
"Whatever you think or feel, promise me that you won't do anything irrational," He continues.  
"Fine," I sigh.

Nick swings the door open, it creaks slowly as it's opening widens. Light breaks out from the inside, a torch suspended overhead to the ceiling fan. Laying on the bloody sheets in the corner of the room is Sarah, bandaged around the stomach, with her hands on her side.

I dart to her side, taking one of her hands in mine. She coughs, her eyes remaining closed, blood spurts out her mouth.

"What happened!?" I yell, turning to Nick.  
Nick hisses at me to be quiet, I nod apologetically.  
"She got shot during the initial rush," Nick begins.  
"I'm going to kill them all," I say monotonously, turning back to look at Sarah.

I hear a metallic clicking behind me. I turn to see Nick holding a gun to my head. Nikita shrieks and dives into Nick, knocking him to the side. She grabs the gun and attempts to wrestle it out of his hands. Pete stands to the side, looking shocked and incapable of helping, Kirstie shares a similar reflection.

"Get off me," Nick grunts, knocking Nikita to the side, winding her and standing himself up.  
"What's was that all about?" I ask Nick ruggedly.  
"Don't let it cloud your judgement," Nick repeats.

Nikita shoves herself up onto her elbows, "Sorry," she grunts, realising that she overreacted.

"You brought some pretty crazy people with you," Pete laughs, Nikita glares at him.

"Now pay attention," Nick says.  
I turn away from Sarah, Nikita stands up and walks over to where the rest of us have gathered.  
"Sarah's fine, she just needs some time to recover," Nick starts, "now, we need to focus on getting the truck back."  
"Not getting Zoey?" I ask.  
"Zoey is expendable, we focus on ourselves now, I know it sounds harsh… but it's the way it works now," Nick tells me.  
"Ellis wouldn't say that," I slyly add.  
"Ellis was the one that said that," Nick quickly responds, shutting me down.

Nick puts his hand into his back pocket and withdraws a reasonably large pistol, it's shiny jet black surface reflecting the dull yellow torchlight in the room. He extends his arm, gripping the barrel and offering me the handle of the weapon.

"You ever shot a gun before kid?" Nick asks, reminding me that I am still a teenager.  
"No, my dad despised guns, he thought they were a machine from hell," I respond.  
"Well…" Nick says, "Would you call this hell yet?"

I look at Sarah, and down to my bloodstained fingernails. I see Pete holding the gun that I assume Nick gave to him. I look back to Nick and take the gun, awkwardly holding it in one hand, trying to get used to it's weight.

"You'll come to love one of these," Nick says, pointing to his own.  
"I don't even know how to use it," I say honestly.  
"I'll teach you when we get our truck back, but not right now…" Nick trails off, "too much noise."

Nikita walks over to Kirstie and holds her hand. I guess she's probably scared knowing that they're the only two concious people in the room without a gun. Nick seems to notice it too and starts to approach them, withdrawing another gun from another pocket. I start to wonder how many he has.

"This is the last one I've got spare," Nick starts, answering my question without me even having to ask it, "you two will have to share."  
"That's ok, Kirstie's never shot a gun." Nikita tells him, reaching for the gun.  
Nick pulls the gun back slightly, "and you have?" he asks.  
"My dad taught me, he made sure I could defend myself if he ever went out for a few days," She tells him.

I refrain from asking if it's because she's Russian. I can tell it probably wouldn't get me in her good books if I started making stereotypes about races. We're all one race now that zombies have arrived, we're all 'survivors'.

"Ready to go?" Nick asks casually.  
"What?" I ask, Nikita echoes my question at the same time.  
"We're getting our stuff back, I was just waiting for you to get back before I went in there," Nick tells me.  
"We don't even know what to expect!" I say to him, my voice becoming frantic.  
"We've been watching them from the wall, we know that they have a routine, and we found out where they're keeping Zoey," Nick tells me.  
"And the truck?" I question.  
"That's just sitting out in the yard, they can't really find a place to hide something that big," Nick says.  
"What about Coach and Ellis?" I ask.  
"One of them will come with us, the other one will cover us from up on the wall with a rifle," Nick tells me, "I've told him to shoot if things go wrong."  
"But the noise…" I trail off.  
"He wont shoot unless he has to," Nick says.

I lift the pistol to my eye, lining the sight up and getting a feel for the gun.

"What about us?" Nikita asks.  
"You don't have to come with us, just stay here and stay safe," Nick tells them.  
"I'll come," Nikita says, "I'll do what I can, after all, Aaron did save my life."  
"I'm coming too!" Kirstie says childishly.  
"This isn't a fun trip," Nick tells her, getting down on a knee to look her in the eyes.  
"You stay here with… Sarah was it?" Nikita asks me.  
"Yeah, stay here with Sarah Kirstie," I tell her.

I can tell Kirstie doesn't like the idea, but she doesn't argue.

"I'm not leaving this kid," Nikita says, gesturing to Pete, "Alone with my little sister, especially not with a gun."  
"He's got the gun because he's helpful," Nick responds quickly, "He's coming with us."  
"That's a bit unfair!" Nikita stays, starting to raise her voice.  
"This is no time to be messing about, she's staying, and you're allowed to stay with her, there's nothing stopping you," Nick tells her quietly.

Nikita bites her tongue and nods, "I'm coming then," she says monotonously.  
"Excellent," Nick says, I smile.  
"What about you then?" Nikita says, going to hand Nick's gun back.

Nick grins wickedly and reaches under the bed where Sarah is resting. He comes back up from under the bed with a metallic clanging sound, and he holds a rifle to his chest.  
"This is marie-anne," He says smiling.  
"He names his guns?" Nikita whispers to me.  
"I had no idea myself," I respond as he starts stroking the barrel with his cheek. Pete manages a giggle.

"Alright then," I say, "So let's get going then."


	15. Chapter 15

Nick leads the way, walking outside into the bright afternoon sunlight. Pete follows close behind him, pistol in hand confidently. I follow him quickly and Nikita slips out the door, letting it close slowly behind her. I look oddly at Pete, he's changed so much in the small space of time. I can't be sure but I assume that it's due to Sarah getting shot that he feels like he has to step up.

As we walk around to the front of the house, I reach down to my legs and throw the material to the side, revealing the hilts of my two signature cleavers. Nick hears the grating sound as I slide them out and hold them in both hands.

"Those could be invaluable at taking people out quietly," Nick tells me.  
"Yeah, I guess you're right," I say, hardly realising how useful they could be.  
"What are their names?" Nick asks me.  
"Beg your pardon?" I respond, not paying full attention.  
"Their names…" Nick repeats.  
"Oh…" I begin," I've uh… never really thought about it I suppose."

Nikita looks at me awkwardly.

"Alright, well," Nick starts, "Can I borrow one, or do you work better with both of them?"

I hand one to Nick and we carry on. I feel safer knowing that not everyone is relying on me to take anyone out. It starts to hit me that I've never killed another human before, zombie humans yes, but never one that talks and thinks.

As we approach the wall, Ellis and Coach start to scale down, I cover my eyes from the bright orange glow as I look upwards to watch them. When they're only a few metres off the ground, Nick asks them, "So who's staying and who's coming with us?"

Coach turns to respond and looses his footing, sliding down the wall quickly. I hold my breath as he hits the ground and collapses.

"Shit," I hear from the heap on the floor.

Ellis quickly leaps down and helps Coach to his feet. Coach stands but his face resembles a sharp pain when he puts pressure on his foot.

"I guess that settles who's going," Coach says with a grunt through bared teeth.  
"Is it broken?" Nick asks him.  
"No, it doesn't feel like it, I'll be fine," Coach replies.

Ellis walks forward, being the first of the two to notice Nikita.  
"Who's this, a replacement for Zoey?" he jokes.

Nikita doesn't seem to understand the joke, though Nick smiles.

"I'm kidding by the way," Ellis says, a smile breaking out on his face. Nikita breathes a sigh of relief, making me smile as well.  
"So they go on regular rounds," Ellis begins, "the one that patrols the border keeps stopping at a piece of sheet metal, lifting it up and disappearing for a time underneath it."  
"Think it's some kind of tunnel," Coach adds gruffly.  
"So that's our ticket in then?" I ask.  
"We just need to find the other entrance," Nick says, finishing my thought.  
"Who says it has a second entrance?" Nikita asks.  
"Well it's a better lead than just storming the front is it not?" Ellis asks. Nikita nods reluctantly.

Ellis hands Coach the rifle that he had been given.  
"Good luck up there," Ellis says.  
"And you guys in there," Coach responds, nodding to us all and turning to scale the wall again.

I watched as Coach climbed the wall painstakingly slowly. He had to throw himself up the wall due to his ankle and he was short of breath before he was even half way up.

"Let's get going," Nick tells us, "He'll be in place by the time we're inside."  
"Ok, the hole was on this side of the wall," Ellis begins, pointing behind Nick, "so we should start searching over that side."  
"Alright," Nick agrees, "and no more talking from now on, it'd be best if they didn't hear us coming.

I feel my hearbeat quicken as I realise what we're actually doing. These people are dangerous, they shoot on sight. I'll kill them all for shooting Sarah though, they crossed a line in doing that.

We all take up a line behind Ellis, he was surveying the area so he knows it better than any of us. Nick is following close behind, not giving up his position in charge. I follow close behind Nick, and Nikita followed cautiously behind me. Pete was following Nikita, the youngest one instinctively taking up a place at the rear in case we run into trouble.

Ellis leads us all behind the house that the wall connects to, the orange light projecting huge shadows on the ground. Ellis turns and starts pointing to people, directing them around without words. He indicates to stay silent as we all began to search in our designated areas.

My section didn't really show anything interesting, there certainly wasn't any tunnel. The only things that I found included overgrown grass and a few scrap planks of rotting wood. The wood certainly didn't look stable enough to use, heck it would probably snap with me standing on it.

I step forward, putting my foot on it to snap it. I had to reason to stand on it, yet for some reason it felt like the right thing to do.

When I put pressure down on my foot, I heard a crunching sound. It was loud, and it made Nick hiss for me to be quiet, however, it was that moment that the plank gave way and my foot sunk into the ground.

My eyes widened and I quickly removed my foot from the wood. Nick rushed over to my side and scolded me for making so much noise. I payed him no attention, instead, I bent down and slid the planks to the side. As they were removed, the wind whistleded into the space that was hidden. The glow of the afternoon sun glared into the darkness to reveal a sort of oversized rabbit hole, angling down at a sharp drop.

"Hmm…" Nick said, patting me on the back.

Ellis had noticed that we were up to something, he went around and got Nikita and Pete and brought them over to my side.

"Nice going Aaron," Ellis whispered.  
"What," I begin, "It's a hole...?"  
"That's the entrance!" Pete gasps.  
"Hardly," I say sadly, "It's barely big enough for a human to lay down in."

I crouch down to get a better look at the hole. I toe some dirt down the hole, listening to it sliding downwards. The sound fades, so I grab a rock drop it in the hole. The soft patting sound comes as it bounces down the dirt, but then there is a clicking sound as it comes to a rest on something harder.

"Rock most likely, a layer of it I'd say," I groan, standing up.  
"Who made you the scientist?" Nikita jokes.  
"Well Aaron," Nick asks, completely ignoring Nikita's joke, "are you going to be the first one in?"

I look at him, completely shocked by his question.

"You mean to go down that!?" I ask quietly, my surprise still showing.  
"Well… it's the way in," Nick says non-chalantly.  
"I'd hardly fit down that thing, who's to say I wouldn't get stuck?" I ask.  
"I can go, I'm small," Pete says, silencing us all.

I look at Pete, and the thought of losing him into the darkness of a hole scares me to death. The fact that he might just disappear into the depths of it forever, maybe it never ends, or maybe it leads nowhere, maybe he'd be incased in the darkness forever if he got stuck.

"I'll go," I say, surprising myself.  
"Excellent," Nick says, producing a flashlight, "turn it on when you get down there and shine it back at us, we will follow."

My breath comes in short gasps as my heart rate increases. How did I end up talking myself into this. I allign myself with the hole, sliding my legs into it. The eager faces look down on me as I begin to slide down, but I get stuck at my chest.

"Lower your arms," Nick says curiously.

I don't like the idea, but I cross my arms over myself, quite like the mummies were bandaged in Egypt. I would normally laugh at the irony of me burying myself beneath the dirt, except the mood is killed by the fact that I'm actually about to submerge myself in sediment.

I grip the torch with all my strength, begging myself not to lose it. I tighten my arms around me, curling myself into a tight ball, yet lying straight.

I take a deep gasp of air, hopefully I get to taste the fresh outside air again.

I close my eyes, it wont matter in the darkness anyway.

And I let my foot out of the dirt, my body giving way and sliding quickly down into the unknown abyss.


	16. Chapter 16

I surpress a cry of alarm as my speed increases down the dirt hill. I continue to accelerate until I'm sure that I'll never stop moving. The walls feel like they're caving in around me, so I risk opening my eyes. I don't accomplish anything except knowing that I'm surrounded by darkness. I risk reaching a hand out from my chest to touch the roof and I begin to panic.

Although I'm still sliding, the roof is right above me, less than a few centimetres from my nose. I surpress another shout as I continue to slide down, though I clamp my eyes closed and begin to pray that I'll make it through alive. It was such a foolish idea sliding blindly down the hole without even knowing what is at the other end. I'm only glad that I did it and not Pete, I don't think he would have coped very well with the dark confined space.

As my mind starts to think I've done the right thing. I feel myself slide to a stop. I begin to panic. I've hit the end now, and I'm stuck, there was nothing down here this whole time. I'll never get out, I'll never have any breathing room, I'll be stuck forever, to die.

I open my eyes, trying to calm myself down, still darkness. I allow my hand to search forward, to feel the inevitable wall right in front of me that will signal my end.

I stretch my hand fully off my chest. Still nothing… I curve my arm until it's all the way extended, and still no wall. I let out a small cheer of success as I realise that I'm not as screwed as I thought I was. I try to start walking, but feel a hard object behind my legs.

"The ground… of course," I say to myself as I realise that I'm laying down after sliding out of the tunnel.

I stand excitedly with a crunching of my feet against the rocks. Turning on the torch excitedly, happy to be free of the confines of the tunnel. My head hits the roof as I stand, and I get angry at myself, dropping the torch in my haste. I grumble but I don't let myself panic. I get down on my knees and start searching.

The loud crunching continues, and after what feels like a minute, I find the torch. My hands clasp around it and I click it on, instantly realising that I shouldn't have. Underneath my feet are bones, hundreds upon hundreds of bones. I can't tell what kind, but the thought of myself scrabbling around on a ground of bones nearly makes me vomit, so I close my eyes, looking away also, just to avoid the sight of it.

I squint my eyes, trying to avoid seeing the floor as much as possible as I look around for the tunnel where I slid out of. I see a small gap at the bottom of the wall and walk towards it. The crunching under my feet makes me feel light-headed, but I carry on, not wanting to fail the group, or Pete, or even Zoey.

I clamber onto my hands and knees clumsily, thrusting the torch as far up the tunnel as I can. I flick it on and off a few times, and I am greeted with the sound of a bird calling. Though no bird could be that loud so that I could hear it even in the tunnel.

I hear the noise of shifting dirt again, so I retract my hand from the tunnel and flick the torch off, the first person must be coming down.

After only about thirty seconds, I hear the first person slide out the mouth of the tunnel, it felt a lot longer when it was me in the tunnel though.

"Aaron," I hear a russian girl's voice whisper.

Smart, they sent Nikita next just in case she was a traitor so I could keep an eye on her. I grab a cleaver from my leg and draw it out of the scabbard.

"Nikita, you'll have to trust me, some things are better with the light off," I say back.  
"What do you mean?" She responds, "And why is the floor so unstable?"  
"That's the reason the light should stay off," I warn her.

I hear her sigh.

"Aaron," she says sternly, "Turn the light on."

I flick the torch on and her face is lit up. I see her expression change to one of shock and she looks away.

"Oh god, is that what I think it is?" She asks.

I nod, but when I realise that she can't see me, I respond quickly with, "Yes."

"Nick told me to flick the light up the tunnel again when I was at the end," Nikita tells me. Stepping towards me with crunching noises.

"Just… stop," I say, "I'll throw the torch to you."

She stops, the crunching noises cease. I sigh and throw the torch deftly towards her. She catches it without difficulty and quickly steps towards the exit of the tunnel. I try and ignore the crunching as much as I can.

Nikita flickers the light a few times up the tunnel, withdrawing her hand similarly to how I did it. She aims the light at me after she withdraws it and gasps. I wheel around quickly to see crates stacked along the walls for what seemed like ages. The floor also looked solid, though it could have just been the darkness.

"Didn't you notice that?" Nikita asks me.  
"No," I respond, "I honestly didn't."

Nick slides out from the tunnel, but Nikita doesn't turn off the torch. Nick quickly scrabbles to his feet when he realises what he's lying on.

"Jesus christ!" he whispers loudly. Beginning to dust himself off.

I feel sorry for him, his white suit is completely covered in brown dirt. Though it's not something to worry about at the moment, so I don't bring it up.

"It's disgusting," Nikita says.  
"It's just animal bones," Nick says.

I breathe a sigh of relief. It's so funny how wound up I was that I almost laugh out loud, I contain it instead.  
"Still doesn't make it any better," Nikita says sadly.  
"I'm ok now that I know that it's not human bones," I reply honestly. Nikita looks hurt.  
"You can go and stand over there," Nick says to Nikita, indicating the solid ground that I had noticed earlier.

Nikita begins to cautiously crunch towards the solid ground, I pass her confidently and take the torch from her as she goes, patting her on the shoulder. After realising that they're only animal bones, I'm suddenly a lot less concerned, though Nikita still seems to be.

Nick takes the torch off me and silently thrusts his hand into the darkness of the tunnel, I hear a few clicking noises and he withdraws it again, re-lighting the room that we're standing in.

He shines the light down the hallway and gasps.  
"It goes a long way doesn't it?" He asks rhetorically.  
"I guess so," I say, hoping that Pete is the next one down.

When I hear some giggling noises coming down the tunnel, I'm sure that the next one is Pete. Sure enough, the young brother, who I can hardly recognise with the dirt and blood from the zombies covering him, is the next one out of the tunnel.

"Alright, last one," Nick says, flicking the light back up the tunnel one last time.

Pete stands quickly and is confronted with the sight of the bones, though it doesn't seem to affect him what kinds of bones they are, he starts to stamp around a bit, crunching noises fill the tunnel.

"Oi, get him to stop that," Nick says to me, his hand still up the tunnel.  
"Pete, stop, come here," I say to him. He smiles innocently and looks at me.

I hear a sobbing from down in the tunnel. Nikita is walking away into the darkness with her head in her hands.

"Stay here," I say quickly, running after her, making the minimal crunching sounds that I can until I'm on the hard ground.

I catch up to Nikita quickly and put my hand on her shoulder.

"What's wrong?" I ask her.  
"You're all sick!" She cries.  
"What are you on about?" I continue to ask.  
"You're just treating the animal bones like nothing, they're no different from humans, they had lives before they were all taken away," She says.

I instinctively embrace her, putting her head into my shoulder so that she can cry without making too much noise. She doesn't struggle or resist the movement as I hold her against me. It's only after a few seconds and after saying to her "It's alright, it'll be ok," that I realise what I'm doing. My eyes widen when I realise how quickly I ended up consoling her, and how instinctively I had held her.

Ellis slides down into the tunnel, I hear the crunching, gripping Nikita tighter against me when it begins.

"Eew," I hear Ellis moan, "now that's just not right."

I start mumbling, I'm not saying anything logical, just random words. I'm blocking out the inevitable statement from Nick that "It's only animal bones," so that Nikita doesn't hear it.

When I stop mumbling, I hear Ellis finishing a question.  
"-going on over there?" Ellis asks.

I look over and see that Ellis is pointing at me, looking quizically.

"No idea," Nick responds, looking over at me and standing up from the tunnel, stretching as he does so, avoiding the low roof.  
"Zoey's not gonna like this," Ellis chuckles jokingly.

When I feel Nikita stop sobbing into my shoulder, I loosen my grip around her. She comes away from my shoulder with her eyes completely stained with tears. But she still manages to smile at me.

"Thanks Aaron," She says genuinely.  
"Are you ok now?" I ask.  
"No," she says, I adopt a puzzled expression, "but I'll manage." She says, and I nod understandingly.

The crunching begins again and I see her wincing, yet she doesn't start crying again thankfully. When the last of the crunching has stopped, Everyone stands in a circle, looking around at each other anxiously awaiting what's to come.

"Let's get going," I say. Nick grins, shrugging his gun off his shoulder and Ellis starts nodding.


	17. Chapter 17

Ellis takes the lead of the group with the flashlight, walking several metres into the boxes before stopping.

"I wonder what all these are," He says curiously.  
"With the bones around, I'm not sure that I want to know," I respond carefully, making sure not to anger Nikita.  
"Here, I'll have a look," Nikita says, drawing a pocket knife.

She slides the blade in between a seam in the box that marked the lid and pushed down, the knife snapped.  
"Shit, and that knife has been so useful to me," She says sadly.

I look down and realise that I'm still holding one of my cleavers. I walk forward and slam it into the seam roughly. A hissing sound escapes as I put pressure on the handle and a sound of wood grating on wood. The lid slides up and Nick grabs one of the corners, helping me to shift it off.

"Oh yeah, jackpot!" Nick says excitedly. I look down into the box and notice bottles upon bottles of a brown liquid. I can already tell what it is, and the thought makes me lightheaded.

Nick grabs two bottles out, propping his gun up against the side of the box so that he can use both his hands. He turns, smiling at everyone, looking like a child on christmas, Ellis laughs.

"Put those down, we can celebrate after we're done here," Ellis chuckles.

Nick turns and replaces the bottles with a clinking sound of glass against glass. It echoed through the tunnel, making me realise just how big it actually is.

"There's no way that they dug this," I say, staring off into the darkness, "They must have found it already made."  
"Probably a public bomb shelter for the whole town," Nick says.  
"I've never heard of those before, are you sure?" I ask.  
"They stay pretty unheard of until they're needed, so you don't come into them and find the supplies all stolen," Nick tells me.  
"The supplies being copious amounts of whiskey?" I say rhetorically.  
"Not usually," Nick carries on, oblivious to my sarcasm, "I'd say the whiskey was stocked by these people who are here now."

Ellis looks around at all the boxes.

"I doubt it's all alcohol," Ellis says, taking my cleaver from where it was resting and cracking open the next box in the row.

I reach forward and lift the lid off, similarly to how Nick did it.

"Yep," Ellis grunts, shoving the lid to the back of the box, "Definitely not all alcohol."

Nick walks over, leaving the whiskey and retrieving his gun. When he sees the contents of the crate, he gasps.

"This could keep us stocked for months," He says, looking at the hundreds of cans of tinned food.  
"It's not a plesant meal for every day, but it'll preserve well, that's for sure," I add.

Nikita grabs a tin, opening it and gulping down it's contents within seconds. My eyes widen at the speed that she ate it all.

"What was that all about?" Nick asks gruffly.  
"Sorry," Nikita responds quickly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, "I haven't eaten for days now."

My face is wiped of emotion as I wonder what it must have been like for her, I've been pretty lucky for my whole time. Sarah always found the house with some food left over, but to not have any food, and to not know when you would get any food, that would have been tough.

"Is that all you need?" Ellis asks genuinely.  
"I'd rather not be sneaking around on a full stomach, so for now I'll be fine, thank you" Nikita responds.

Ellis nods and lifts the lid back onto the crate, sealing it again with a few bangs on the lid.

"Why are we closing them again?" I ask as Nick begins to seal the box full of whiskey, though he leaves a mark on the side, I assume that it's so he can find the box again.

"If anyone comes down here before we're done in their camp, they'll see that something's been happening and they'll sound an alarm.

I nod as I realise that he's right.

"Alright, let's get going then," Ellis says, rising the torch up so we can see down the tunnel.  
"No talking from now on," Nick says, we all silently agree.

We all move on, Pete comes and stands beside me, almost making me jump. I forgot that he was down here for a second because of how quiet he was being, which made me think that maybe he'd be valuable for sneaking around in the camp. I quickly dispell the idea when I realise that it's putting Pete at direct risk, I also mentally kick myself for thinking of such a selfish idea.

We walk for only about a minute before the tunnel comes to an end. Ellis stretches out, raising his arms above his head. I look at him as though something is out of place, but I can't think of what. I crane my head up to look at the roof, and that's when I realise that the roof has moved, it's no longer crushing down on us, but it's a lot higher. I smile and stretch my neck out with a few loud cracks, making Nick glare at me and Nikita shudder.

Ellis points to a staircase at the end of the tunnel, everyone nods their understanding of what it is and Ellis begins to walk up it. Nick goes to follow, but Ellis turns. He gestures for us all to stay where we are and hide, just incase the worst should happen.

We split to the sides, hiding behind the walls at the beginning of the staircase, out of sight of Ellis standing on the stairs. I step to the right side, Nikita follows me, Nick goes and stands in the left corner and Pete hides in front of him. I hear Ellis sigh a breath of satisfied relief. I hear him turn to continue up the stairs. I hear a grating noise, which sets my teeth on edge, but I assume that it's just the iron on top of the hole being shifted.

Daylight washes in, the cool blue glow that showed that the sun was setting. I breathe a breath of the fresh air that had filled the tunnel. But then I see a sight that I didn't expect to see.

Ellis rushes around the corner and dives in beside Nick, clicking the flashlight off the second he realises it's still on.

My heart races when I realise that it wasn't him that had opened the entrance. Removing my second cleaver from my leg, I grip the two of them in both hands, preparing for the worst.


	18. Chapter 18

I hear my heartbeat banging away in my chest and wonder if anyone else can hear it too. Nikita starts to panic, her breath coming in frantically. I nudge her with my elbow, she looks at me and goes quiet. I edge myself in front of her, ready to jump on whoever comes in.

Someone passes right past me, an adult male figure, holding a shotgun by his side and clicking a torch on, aiming it down the hallway. I raise my cleaver, but see Nick out of the corner of my eye gesturing for me to not. He puts up his hand, telling me to wait. I nod to say that I understand, realising that he's meaning to wait for any more people to come down.

I wait as the man slowly walks down the hallway, eyeing up the boxes on his right side. I assume that he's looking for the whiskey, but it's not really important. I look at Nick and he nods, so I move after the man quietly. Making the best effort to make my footsteps noiseless. I time them so that they land at the same time as his so that he can't hear them over his own.

Coming up right behind him, he begins to whistle. I wonder if he's caught me and my face goes cold, but then I notice that he's just whistling because he can. If I weren't trying to keep quiet, I might have laughed.

I slow my pace when I'm right behind him and I raise my cleaver, planning to bring it down into his skull, killing him instantly without a sound. But something stops me. I realise what I'm about to do and I have to stop myself from dropping the cleaver. I was about to kill a man without knowing anything about him. Not a zombie, but an actual human, a living and breathing human.

I can't bring myself to kill another human for no reason. So I put the cleaver in my other hand, I ready my fist, pulling it back as far as I can manage. I grit my teeth and swing forward, slamming it into the back of his head as hard as my body will allow.

I hear a groan escape his mouth, but thankfully, his knees buckle and he falls forward, collapsing onto his shotgun. I pray that it doesn't fire, but thankfully it doesn't.

Nick quickly appears by my side, grabbing the mans torch quickly, and taking his gun a bit more slowly.  
"Is he dead?" He whispers to me.  
"I hope not," I respond, Nick looks at me quizically, so I continue, "I cant just kill a human without knowing if they're a bad person."

Nick nods, withdrawing a zip-tie from his pocket. I begin to wonder just how much he has in his pockets. He ties the mans hands together and drags him up against one of the crates.

"He's still breathing, so we'll have to be quick," Nick tells me.  
"Why's that?" I ask.  
"When he wakes up, he'll start yelling," Nick says.  
"Let's get going then," I say back.

Ellis walks quickly over to us.

"I've got an idea," He says, looking down at the man.

He kicks his shoes off and gets down on his knees, doing the same to the unconcious man.  
"Sorry about this pal," He says under his breath to him.  
"What are you doing?" I ask curiously.  
"You ever played one of those 'Hitman' games?" He asks, taking the cleaver from my hand and removing the mans ziptie handcuffs.  
"I… guess," I respond, still confused.  
"It's a lot easier to disguise in that, isnt it?" Ellis asks, I shrug, "And you might want to look away, I'm not comfortable with you watching me change."

I walk back over to Nikita and Pete, hearing a few zipping sounds as I go. I try not to think about what's happening behind me; instead, I stand in silence, staring up at the open entrance to the tunnel. Watching and waiting for someone to find us and just gun us all down.

I hear a cough behind us, I turn quickly to see Ellis standing behind us in the other man's clothes. I barely recognise him at first and end up getting quite a scare.

"How do I look?" Ellis whispers.

Nick pats him on the back and hands over the shotgun that he retrieved from the man.

"Better make it look believable," He says as Ellis takes the gun.  
"Was it just me, or was he slightly smaller than you?" I ask. Nick smiles.  
"I don't think it's that noticable to he honest," Ellis says, though I still notice him bending his knees slightly to adjust.

I hear a crunching noise coming from the entrance of the tunnel. I quickly dive behind the wall, flattening myself against it where we were all originally hiding. Ellis almost jumps into the darkness as well, but instead. I see him walk to the stairway and begin to climb it confidently. He begins to whistle the same tune that the man was whistling when he entered the tunnel, so I assume that it must have been some well known song or something.

When Ellis reaches the entrance, I hear him stop whistling, he breathes in a sigh of relief and says out loud, "I never like going down there, it's too dark for my liking."

I hear another voice say, "Sound's like Jerry's afraid of the dark," in a taunting fashion.  
"Oh shut up, it puts me on edge is all," Ellis responds quickly.  
"You'd better get back on guard man," The other man says.  
"Want to swap locations," Ellis says, and I hear him sliding the metal sheet back over the tunnel entrance, "I'm getting sick of the scenery at that last place, nothing good to look at."

Ellis leaves the metal a little bit off the entrance, so we can still hear what's going on.

"Alright," the man responds, "But you're getting an extra half an hour onto your shift time by doing it."  
"Nothing better to do is there?" Ellis asks rhetorically.

I hear the other man grunt and begin to walk off, his footsteps dragging against the grass as he leaves.

The metal grate slides back open slowly, only a small scraping sound escapes it as the sunlight floods into the opening. Ellis appears quickly around the corner and nods.

"Come on, quickly," Ellis whispers.  
"What happens if we get caught?" I ask  
"Well let's hope it doesn't happen," Nick responds, "then we wont have to worry about it."

Ellis leads the way out of the tunnel, stopping at the top and quickly looking around, scanning the surrounding area before signalling that it's safe to leave.

When I step out into the clean outside air, I can't help but breathe in and crane my neck upwards towards the sky. The sunlight was beginning to fade and I could tell that it would be night soon, which could work out to be lucky for us.

I scan the area and take in things that it would be smart to remember. I notice that the tunnel entrance is right in front of an orange house, so now I know where to come back to. There is a tent in the centre of the street with a bunch of cardboard boxes underneath it. Outside the tent is a big pit, two men are filling it up with wood, so I assume that it is a fire pit.

I look up at the wall of zombies, when I squint, I can just make out a figure lying down on top of the wall, jutting out above the line of corpses. At least he made it to the top.

"If we get into trouble, everyone drop to the floor and don't move," Ellis warns us, his voice barely making any noise as it leaves his mouth.

"So," I begin, mimicking his quiet tone, "where are we going?"

Ellis gestures slowly in a direction and I have to hold back an annoyed sigh. Where he points is diagonally across the camp, past the tents and past a few patrolling people that I've noticed.

"Ok, you two, with me," Nick says, pointing to me and Nikita.  
"We're splitting up?" Nikita asks.  
"I'm not leaving my brother," I tell him.  
"Now's not the time for this," Nick responds.

Nick gets closer to Ellis, whispering something and pointing in two different directions. I feel fear swelling inside me. I wasn't planning on splitting up.

"I like it," Ellis says as I see a grin spread to his face.  
"Ok, so everybody play along, we're going that way," Nick says, pointing in a direction.  
"Pete, play along," Ellis says.

Pete looks at him, a puzzled expression crossing his face. Ellis reaches out and grabs Pete by the arm.

"What the heck?" I begin.  
"It's an act, watch, but don't stop moving," Nick says, shoving me and Nikita to the side, opposite to where Ellis is facing.

Ellis begins to head to the middle of the street, turning slightly to face the tent. I watch as Pete begins to yell and kick.

"Who's this?" One of the men stacking firewood asks.  
"Found him stealing food," Ellis begins.

"Nick," I whisper as we begin to skirt around the side of the street, avoiding the line of sight of the guards, "what about Coach?"  
Nick stops for a second, but then continues, saying, "the rifle has a pretty good scope on it, if he can't tell that it's Ellis then he isn't doing a good job overwatching us."

He dispells my concern, but I can tell in his body language that he's nervous now. He is more alert and he keeps looking over his shoulder at the wall of zombies.

"Just throw 'im in with that other lady," A man calls out, I realise that he's talking to Ellis.  
"Alright, c'mon kid, stop struggling!" Ellis growls impatiently at Pete.  
"Let me go!" Pete wails convincingly. I can't help but panic, even though I know that it's only an act.  
"Don't make me shoot you kid, I'm doing you a favour here!" Ellis says, it sounds so realistic.

Pete quietens down and I watch as Ellis drags him quickly by the arm towards where he had pointed earlier.

"Right, now it's just us," Nick says.

We stay silent from then, slipping quickly behind what little cover we can find when people come too close. When the truck comes into sight from behind a house, I can't help myself but smile. Nick smiles too. Nikita is the only one who doesn't, but she doesn't know that it's our truck.

"That's ours," I say, turning to Nikita and pointing at the truck, "it's good to see it again."

Nikita nods to say that she's understood.

"So Zoey should be around there somewhere?" I ask.  
"Your guess, to where she is exactly, it's as good as mine," Nick says quickly, not taking his eyes off the truck on the opposite side of the road.

Just as Nick finishes talking, I hear Pete scream again.  
"Quiet!" I hear Ellis yelling from somewhere behind the truck.

"Well…" Nick begins, "That's a start."


	19. Chapter 19

_**Sorry about such a long delay waiting for this next chapter, I needed to focus most of my time on exams and assignments, also it was good to have a bit of a break, I'm back though! And I feel like this 5000 word chapter will repay everyone for the delay!**_

_**ioan: That's a really good idea, I hadn't actually thought about it until I read that review. If you stick with this long chapter, I feel that you'll be plesantly surprised though :)**_

Staying low, Nick quickly darts across the road. I cringe every time some loose gravel crunches under his feet. Although it's quiet, it sounds like glass shattering to me.

Nikita is the next one to run across, she takes off her shoes first, which makes me curious. She then takes off at a full sprint, keeping herself doubled over in an awkward sort of crouch. I almost rush forward and pull her back, knowing that the amount of noise she'd make would definitely draw some sort of attention.

I hold my breath for the few seconds that it takes her to clear the road. Through the whole distance that she runs across, she makes literally no noise. My eyes widen when I realise that everyone is relying on me now.

I know that I'll never be able to keep as quiet as Nikita, the speed at which she cleared the road almost makes me jealous. I make a mental note to ask her how she does it. I refuse to take off my shoes, knowing that I'd probably stand on something sharp and end up making more noise from that.

I put my first foot on the hard bitumen, feeling every individual shard of gravel shifting under my feet. I grit my teeth and carry on, slowly putting my feet down onto the crunching gravel. I wince every time I make even the slightest noise. I stop every time, looking around to make sure that nobody noticed it.

I look over to the far side of the road, and see Nick gesturing to me, he keeps frantically lowering his hand from his eye level downward. I don't understand at first, but then I understand that he's telling me to crouch down, I feel a slight pang of embarrassment as I realise that I forgot to keep myself low.

I lower myself, but it only causes more noise with every step. I look desperately at Nick and Nikita, I'm only half way across the street, but I've made more noise than they both did in the whole distance.

Nikita mouths the word "run" to me, and I look at her quizically. Nick looks at her oddly too, so I assume he must have heard her whisper it. I shake my head, denying her suggestion to run, knowing that it'll only make more noise.

I press on, slowly crunching with every footstep as I find myself getting closer and closer to the other side of the road. I hear someone yell out, freezing and going cold, I look to where the voice came from. A man is in the middle tent, I assume that he's the one that yelled. I silently pray that he can't see me, but my relief comes when someone else steps around the corner and gets angry at him.

They begin to argue, "_Finally, some luck" _I say in my head. I begin to time my footsteps with their voices, the crunching becoming barely noticable even to me. A smile spreads to my face as I make it to the other side of the road and step off the crunching gravel onto the soft dead grass. Nick pats me on the back when I crouch down beside them.

"Lets keep moving then," Nikita says.

I slip quickly out in front, feeling the need to redeem myself after making so much noise on the gravel. I dart behind the truck, enjoying the feeling of it's safety. I notice that the darkness has really began to take effect, I can barely see the ground from the shadow cast behind the truck. I press myself up against a back wall, edging slowly across it until I can see the fire pit in the middle of the road. A man has doubled over, flicking matches into it and trying to make it light. I watch, mesmerised as the flame catches and a huge fire bursts from the pit. The chill has began to set in the air, I realise it and get envious of the man, who takes his chair and sits it right beside the fire.

I grit my teeth to stop the chattering that was bound to set in; I slide myself to the end of the wall and peek around it slowly, refraining from diving right out when I see something that really raises my spirits. Zoey is sitting in a large cage, a look of excitement crossing her face while Pete whispers to her from the other end. Ellis is nowhere to be seen though, making me worry.

I turn to tell the other two about what's around the corner, jumping backwards slightly when I nearly collide heads with Nikita.

"Sorry," She hisses, "I shouldn't have gotten so close."  
I ignore her apology, not finding it necessary to go on about it, "Zoey and Pete are around the corner."  
Nick's face lights up. "What about Ellis?"  
"I didn't see him," I say sadly.  
"No matter," Nick responds calmly, "he probably returned to his guard post to not arouse suspicion."

I nod when I realise that Nick is probably right. I turn the corner, sliding quickly along the wall, doubled over so I'm not caught out by anyone. Nikita follows soundlessly. Nick follows behind her, his suit rustling slightly while he keeps up.

Zoey notices me, I raise my finger to my lips to signal her to stay silent, but it happens too late.  
"Aaron!" She cries out.  
"Fuck," Nick growls quietly.

I feel Nikita's nervousness growing, like an aura surrounding her.

A man yells from around the fire, "Go shut those prisoners up!"

I look towards the fire and see a man getting up, reluctantly picking up his gun and walking away, looking longingly at the fire as he walked towards us.

"How hasn't he seen us?" Nikita asks.

It dawns on me, he'd been looking at the fire, so his night vision had been taken away, and it would take him a few minutes yet before he got it back.

"Follow me," I hiss, quickly taking off into the shadows behind the cage, slipping between a gap between the cage and the wall.

The darkness surrounds us as we all come shoulder to shoulder at the back of the small space. There is enough space between me and the cage to breathe easily, so I don't panic, however, I begin to worry about Nick's suit.

"Hey Nick, you're suit is white!" I hiss.  
"Shit," Nick responds, "He'll notice me won't he?"  
I quickly make a decision, "Nikita, swap places with him."  
"What?" She responds startled, thinking that I was choosing to offer her up as a shield.  
"You're wearing black, not as noticable," I say, watching the man getting closer to the cage.

Understanding floods Nikita's face, she starts to try and slide past Nick, though there's hardly enough space for one person to fit, let alone two. Nikita begins to climb the cage, Nick gets as low as he can and begins to slide under her feet. I look into the cage and see Zoey looking at me questioningly. I realise that she's probably wondering what I'm thinking, or who the girl in the black is, when I remember that she hasn't seen Nikita before. I signal for her to turn around, and not look back at me.

Nikita drops quickly down, making virtually no noise as she hits the ground. Nick uses as much of her black clothing to cover himself as he can, crouching slightly, so he is around her height.

The man unlocks the cage, fumbling with the keys and wrenching the door open with an earsplitting screeching sound. He aims his gun inwards.

"You two stay where you are," He points it at Zoey, then at Pete. Anger kicks up inside me.  
"Now, which one of you was yelling?" He growls.

Neither person respond.

"Well, if you don't want to talk so much anymore, I'll have to punish you both!" He says.  
"I called out," Pete says, his voice convicted and unshaken as he says it calmly to the man.  
"Nice try kid, I admire your bravery," The man responds.

Pete's display of courage surprises me. He stared the man in the eyes, down the barrel of his gun, and still told him that he was the one who called out. I know I wouldn't have been able to manage it, but I still think it was incredibly foolish. The man could have just shot him at that moment and I wouldn't have been able to do anything but watch.

The man turns to Zoey, she panics and begins to crawl backwards. My breath catches in my throat as I realise that she's crawling towards us.

"Hey!" Pete yells, leaping up and grabbing the man's arm, "I was the one who called out!"  
"No you didn't, it wasn't your voice," The man responds, shaking him off and throwing him onto the ground.

Pete climbs to his feet quietly, Zoey starts to sob as the man approaches her. I watch as Pete draws a small handle out of his sleeve, clicking it, causing a small blade to silently flick out. I wonder where he got it from, I never gave it to him, I never even knew he had it. He brings his arm up, only being able to reach up to the man's shoulder.

"Put the knife down boy," The man says.

My eyes widen, the man didn't even turn and look, but he still knew that Pete had a knife!

Pete doesn't listen, he brings it quickly down towards the man's back. The man spins and grabs Pete's hand with an iron grip, bringing it to a stop. I panic as I see the situation that Pete is stuck in.

"Big mistake kid," the man says.

Pete begins to cough, I hope that he isn't getting a cold from the weather. Blood begins to spurt from his mouth, on the man's hand. Nick clamps a hand over my mouth to stop me from calling out. The man looks down at his arm and sees blood running down it.

"What's this!?" He cries out, letting go of Pete's hand and falling backwards, landing near Zoey and making her cry out and crawl away, even closer to us.

Pete walks towards the man, grabbing the wrist band that he'd taken to wearing to cover his bite.

"Keep away from me demon!" The man yells, wiping the blood off his arm onto his shirt.

Pete looks at him, with cold dead eyes. Blood running down his mouth. The man crawls backwards, pressing himself against the back of the cage. Nikita slips towards him silently, so she's standing right behind him. I wonder what she's going to do.

Pete pulls the band off, holding his wrist out to the man.

"You're infected!" He says, lifting his gun and aiming it at Pete.  
"No!" I call out, unable to watch my brother getting shot.

The man stops. Turning to look into the darkness where we are standing.

"Hey!" He yells, being cut off when Nikita grabs his head, slamming it repeatedly into the steel bars with loud rattling noises.

Nikita keeps at it for what feels like close to a minute. Her teeth are gritted and she winces with every impact, I realise that she doesn't want to do it, but she knows that she has to. She lets him drop, he groans and falls to the floor.

"Is he… dead?" Zoey asks.  
"I doubt it, let's get out of here!" Nick hisses.

Pete picks up the gun that the man dropped and rushes out the open cage door, he waits until Zoey has regained some of her sense. She gets up and sweeps Pete's knife off the floor, running out the cage door after him. He slams it shut and locks it, taking the keys and handing them to Nick.

We all regroup, but there's no time to share with reunions, nor with introductions. Nick flicks his gun off his shoulder and turns the safety off, and aims down the sight towards the fire pit. The men have started to rouse and run about, picking up weapons and heading for the cage. I can tell that they have no idea what is going on.

I draw the pistol that Nick gave to me back at the house, turning off the safety and taking a deep breath. The thought of killing someone still gets to me, even if they are trying to kill me first. Nikita gets out her gun that Nick gave to her, turning the safety off as well, looking down the sight deftly. I can tell that she's not looking forward to the fight to come either.

"Ellis took my gun when he put me in the cell," Pete says sadly.  
"Isn't that a bit over the top on the realism?" I ask Nick.  
"No, it was smart, so Ellis didn't blow his cover," Nick says, "You can just keep that one."  
Pete looks down at the gun, which is almost half the size of him, "I probably can't use this…"  
"Let's hope you don't need to, just stay behind me," Nick responds, smiling at him.

I split up from the group, grabbing Zoey by the arm and dragging her back in the direction of the truck, Nick and Pete stay close to each other, Nikita quickly decided to follow them. The last I see of them is Nick disappearing into a house through an open window, Nikita and Pete quickly jumping into the darkness after him.

I shift my focus to what's happening at the fire pit. The men have all grouped up, one of them also disappeared and got Ellis, who was standing with the group of them. Through the silence, I hear "Jerry and Ben, go and check the truck, make sure they don't take it!"

When I hear that two people are coming for the truck, my heart stops. Zoey starts to panic too, tears forming in her eyes. I quickly grab the handle of the back door, it clicks and the door swings open. My eyes widen as I realise that the truck is still unlocked.

"You'll be ok, just hide in here," I tell Zoey, pointing to the space under the back seat, where we initially met ironically.  
"I'm scared Aaron," She weeps, "Are we going to get out of here?"  
"Yes, we've got this under control," I lie, keeping my voice as calm as possible.

A loud gunshot cracks, shattering the tense silence, a man in the courtyard drops to the ground, lifeless.  
"Bloody hell they've got a sniper!" One of the men yells.

The men in the courtyard scatter to cover in a fit of yelling and sprinting around grabbing weapons. Two men sprint towards the truck, I assume it's Jerry and Ben. Zoey finishes climbing under the seat just in time, I scramble into the truck beside her, lying down on the floor, though not having enough room under the seat to fit under.

I pull the door with my foot, slamming it shut. Zoey grabs me, pulling my arm and trying to drag me under the chair. I press up against her though I can only fit half way under the chair, so I slide myself back out. I figure that if they find us in the truck, I'll need as much movement range as I can get to defend myself.

Silence settles over us, I can hear Zoey's panicked breathing, doubled with my own. It feels like a lifetime of waiting, but then I hear something that makes my stomach sink. All of the doors pop, and are opened at one time. I look down and see a man looking at me, he quickly claws at his gun, raising it up to shoot at me.

"Jerry, They're in the back!" the man yells. I assume it's Ben.  
Zoey grabs my arm and starts crying. I try to mask as much of her noise as I can, hoping that somehow, by a stroke of luck, they'd forget about her and just take me. A gunshot splits the air above me, making my ears ring. I don't feel any pain, or anything odd that would symbolise my death. Insead, the man at my feet drops to the floor.

I look up to the person at my head, and see a familiar pale southerner looking down at me and smiling.

"Ellis!" Zoey screams with happiness.  
"Well done Jerry," I nod.  
"You idiots hid in a truck… with no way out?" He laughs.  
"I didn't know what to do, I'm just glad you came along!" I respond.  
"Where's the others?" Ellis asks curiously.  
"We split up," I tell him.

Ellis curses under his breath.  
"That was a bad idea," he says.  
"Let's go find them then!" I say.  
"Wait," Ellis says, stopping me from getting out of the truck, "We'll use the truck to our advantage."

Ellis quickly jumps into the front seat, signalling me to get into the passenger seat. I jump through the space between the front seats. Zoey climbs out from under the seat at the back.

"What do I do?" Zoey asks.

Ellis responds by hurling a rifle into the back seat. It lands on Zoey's lap and she shouts out.

"Just… use that if you get into trouble," Ellis says.

He turns the key, the truck splutters and growls as it comes alive. Ellis turns on the headlights, clicking them onto high beam and blinding the people in front of the truck. Ellis puts the truck into gear and slams down on the pedals in a mechanic fashion. The truck lurches forward and flies out of the open garage.

"In that building there!" I yell, pointing towards the building that Nick, Pete and Nikita ran into. He turns the wheel deftly, directing the truck towards the front of the house that I pointed out.

"Ok, when we pull up, you rush in and get them, alright?" Ellis demands.  
"I guess so, but how do we get out of here?" I ask.  
"I'll figure that out when we get to that part," Ellis says.

I can tell that he has no idea what we'll do, but he's kept us alive so far, so I trust him.

When we get to the house that the three ran into, Ellis slams on the breaks, the truck's tyres screech as we pull to a stop. He slams his other foot down on the clutch and lifts himself forward off the chair, grabbing Pete's gun from his back pocket where he must have put it when he took it off Pete during their act.

"Go!" He yells, kicking open his door and aiming out the front of the car, taking a few shots to get the men by the fire into cover. A man comes hobbling towards the car, I almost shoot him until I realise that it's Coach.

"Why aren't you on the wall?" I ask.  
"We need to get out of here now!" He yells, sounding terrified.  
"I've got to go and get the others!" I yell back.  
"Hurry," He tells me, "I'm serious."

I sprint into the house, dodging a few stray bullets as they skim across the floor or zip past my head. I run towards the garage door. I remember how Coach broke down a door when we first met. I ran towards the door and brought my legs up, leaping through the air like a cannonball. As I came close to the door, I thrust my legs outward, feeling the door give way under my feet. Two of the panels fell inwards and I flew through the gap in the door, before the whole thing collapsed around me.

In the complete darkness of the house, I was forced to do nothing but yell out. Time was of the essence, and I wasn't going to slowly go feeling my way through the house. Luckily, when the door collapsed, light flooded in from the fire outside.

"Guys! Come here! Quickly!" I shout at the top of my lungs.

Nikita comes rushing out, her face looking grim. I look for Nick. He's coming through the doorway a lot more carefully, carrying Pete in his arms.

"What happened?!" I cry out in alarm.  
"He just collapsed, I don't know!" Nick grunted.  
"We've got to go!" I yell at him.  
"Should we bring him with us… he is turning I gues-," Nick starts, slowly forming his sentence so he doesn't hurt me.  
"Yes we're bringing him!" I say, not even bothering to think about it. The thought of leaving Pete behind is the stupidest thing Nick's ever suggested.

Nick nods, I run out first, taking a few shots at the men that lifted their heads out of cover to shoot at us. Nikita takes the moment and sprints for the truck that I point at. She leaps into the back quickly when Zoey opens the door.

"Now's not the best time for them to get aquainted is it?" Nick jokes through bared teeth as we both sprint for the truck.

I see that Coach has already taken the space in the front, So the only space that is left is the one seat in the back.

"Nikita, move over, and take Pete!" Nick yells, throwing Pete quickly, but carefully, into the truck. Nick leaps in after him, ducking under the roof quickly. I leap onto the frame of the truck, gripping the roof and aiming my pistol over the roof. I shoot a few more shots, using the roof as a brace for accuracy. Managing to shoot someone in the arm. A cry of pain fills the sky as he collapses to the ground. I have to hold back a wave of sick as I realise what I'd just done.

Nick grabs my leg and pulls me into the truck, I collapse down into the truck and he throws me into the middle of the truck, slamming the door behind me.

"Where to fellas?" Ellis jokes.  
"Not the time! Drive!" Coach yells back at him, pointing out the front window.  
"Seriously… where!?" Ellis asks, looking at the impassable wall of zombies in front of us.

At that moment, almost out of wishing, the wall started to collapse at the middle. It started with a few zombies falling from the wall, but eventually, a landslide of corpses started falling, clearing a way through the wall.

"Finally, some luck," Coach says relieved.

Through the falling corpses, a giant figure steps through. It looks like a gorilla, but it's the size of the truck that we're all in. It looks up to the sky, craning it's massive arms up and slamming them into the ground, cracking the road in front of it. It roars, striking fear into everyone in the car, except for Nick and Coach, who still seem somewhat calm.

"Yeah… I take that back," Coach says."  
"Turn off the headlights!" Nick yells to Ellis, who clickly flicks the headlights off.

The massive gorilla like animal looks confused, but turns, focusing it's attention on the huge bonfire. It roars again and heads at a full sprint towards the fire.

"Now go!" Coach yells.

Ellis slams his foot down on the pedal again, the wheels scream and the truck lurches, everyone is thrown around as the truck heads at a fast speed for the opening in the wall. When the wheels hit the zombies on the floor, the crunching begins. Nikita is sitting beside me, and I can tell that the crunching noises would set her in another headspin, so I cover her ears quickly. It obviously doesn't help, but I can tell it makes her feel better. Zoey looks at me, I feel like I can see a pang of jealousy in her eyes, but I can't be sure.

"Jesus it's going to take us ages to clean the truck!" Coach exclaims as zombie blood flies up and hits the windshield.  
"What are we going to do about Sarah?" I yell over the gunshots behind us.  
"You'll have to run in and get Sarah and Kirstin," Nick begins, "I'll help."  
"Who's Kirstin," Zoey asks jealously, "How many girls have you been bringing in?"  
"She's Nikita's sister, now's not the time," I respond quickly.

When the truck pulls up out the front of the house that Sarah was hiding in, I fling the door open and leap out. Everyone else opens their doors and gets out too, Ellis and Coach drawing out rifles from the front of the truck. Nick kisses his gun and leaps out, aiming back towards the breach in the wall.

"Go!" Nick yells.

I take off at a full sprint towards the back of the house, running blindly through the darkness. I see a crack of light breaking out from under a door. I grab the handle and wrench it around, flinging the door open. Light floods my eyes and I close them, Nikita bursts in past me, yelling something in Russian.

"Kirstie we've got to go," She says wildly.

I run towards Sarah, opening my eyes after they've somewhat adjusted to the bright light. I see her laying on the bed, her face is abnormally pale. I kiss her on the forehead and wrap my arms around her, lifting her up off the bed. Her eyes snap open and a look of confusion crosses her face, before a look of pain quickly takes over. She cries out in pain.

"Hey it's alright Sarah," I console her, "we've got to go!"  
"What's… going… on?" She groans.

I open my mouth to explain it, but then I realise that I don't actually have a clue myself.

"Hard to explain," I respond quickly.

I run as fast as I can with my sister in my arms, Nikita follows me out, holding Kirstin's hand and pulling her along quickly. When we round the house and run back towards the truck, I see the three adults and Zoey shooting at the breach in the wall, muzzle flashes light up the darkness of the night and cracks ring in the sky like a thousand whips.

I look to the breach to see what they're shooting at, my eyes widen when I see the massive beast struggling it's way through the masses of zombie corpses. My pace quickens.

I reach the car to hear the sound of the four yelling directions at each other. I slide Sarah into the car.

"I can sit up you know," Sarah manages through gritted teeth.  
"That's good," I say, running around to the back of the truck and getting my pistol out of my pocket.

I take up a position beside Nick, he looks at me with disbelief.

"We can't bring this thing down," He starts.  
"What do you mean!?" I yell over the gunshots.  
"We've tried before, it followed us here!" He yells, "We've got to go!"

I follow his lead, running towards the truck, he begins to get into the back, but a voice stops him.

"Nick, you drive!" Ellis yells to him.  
"What about you?" He responds.  
"Someone needs to draw that thing off," He responds, taking off away from the truck.

I watch him as he runs into the darkness, yelling at the creature to follow him and firing shots at it to anger it.

"He just pulled the cliché death scene, didn't he?" Sarah asks as I climb into the car beside her.

I'm unable to form words as I hear his yelling outside of the truck.

"You two, come on!" Nick yells to Zoey and Coach.

Nikita climbs in the back, lifting Kirstin up after her as she takes her seat beside me.

"What's wrong with Petey?" Sarah asks, looking at the unconcious boy.  
"Now's not the time Sarah!" I yell.

Nick climbs into the front, flicking on the headlights again and looking for Ellis in the darkness. Ellis is nowhere to be seen, and the animal like thing seems to be following him.

"Guys!" Nick yells again, "Come on!"

Zoey and Coach turn, running towards the truck, Zoey quickly clambers into the back and sits in the small space left beside Pete, slamming the door. Coach leaps onto the door frame of the passenger seat of the truck. He pulls himself inward, gritting his teeth.

A loud crack splits the air, silencing all the panic. Time seems to freeze for a second, Coach's expression changes to a blank face.

"No!" Nick yells, breaking the silence.

Coach falls backwards, his grip on the door frame slipping. He hits the ground with a dull thud. I turn quickly to see where the gunshot came from, a few men are piling out of the breach in the wall, cimbing over the zombie corpses. Gunshots rattle off the back of the truck.

"Drive!" I yell.

Nick shows signs of giving up, but his hand quickly snaps to the gearstick, slamming it into first gear and taking off with a loud roaring of the engine.

Everyone takes a moment to catch their breath, or at least everyone that's left…

I look at Nick, who is staring forward into the darkness, unblinking and refusing to make a sound. He blinks a few times, wiping his damp eyes with a sleeve. It's the first time I've seen Nick in pain, and the first time I've seen him cry.

_**This is the **__**second last**__** chapter in the story, I'll be overjoyed to write a second season though, if people let me know that they want it!**_


	20. Chapter 20

My eyes open as the sun starts to rise over the road ahead of us. I stretch myself out, looking around and observing the environment. The road in front of the truck stretches on for as far as I can see, and there is nothing but barren land to either side of the truck. I remember jumping through to the front seat in the middle of the night to see if Nick was alright, but he didn't say a word when I asked him how he was holding up.

I turn to the back to see how everyone is faring back there. Kirstin is asleep on Nikita's shoulder. Sarah and Pete are both very pale, Pete seems to still be unconcious, however Sarah looks more comfortable however, making me think she's just asleep Nikita and Zoey seem to still be quite curious about each other, they had shifted in the night so they were sitting beside each other. I have to wonder how much they talked about while I was asleep.

I remember how Zoey and I had a falling out, and I have to hope that she's somehow just gotten over it, but I know that I'm never that lucky, so I don't hope for it.

"Morning," Nick croaks, making me jump.

I feel bad that I forgot to check on him, even though he's the driver, being the most important person in the truck.

"How are you?" I ask sincerely.  
"Tired," He responds simply.  
"About last night…" I begin.  
"I'd rather not remember it," He says.

I sit in silence for a moment, thinking about what a toll it must have made on him.

"So…" I begin, choosing my words carefully, "where are we going?"  
"Countryside," He says.  
"Can you tell me why?" I ask, trying to get more than one word answers out of him.  
He sighs.  
"Zombies come from people, meaning that if we go somewhere that there was never people to begin with, we won't have trouble." He tells me.

I nod, so he continues.

"Also, people in the country always have farms, so we could find a place with vegetables, maybe we could try and just live by ourselves until this is all over." He says.

I nod, my spirits rising slightly when I hear about his idea, realising that it might actually work.

"There's still the problem of your brother," He says bluntly.  
"What 'problem' are you talking about?" I rebutt defensively.  
"Don't try to ignore it, you're a bigger man than that Aaron, I know you, you're strong, don't try to avoid it," Nick tells me, turning away from the road to look me in the eyes.

I can see in his darkened, tired eyes that he wasn't going to take anything if I tried to avoid the problem.

"I don't know what to do!" I say, tears forming in my eyes.  
"There's no known cure," He responds, "the best thing to do… would be to make his passing easier."

I nod, biting my lip. I know what has to be done, but it doesn't make it any easier knowing.

"Can we at least wait for him to wake up?" I manage to say, my voice shaking.  
"Of course, you can take as much time as you need," Nick tells me, his focus drifting and the truck swerving slightly.

I take a moment to wipe my eyes, similarly to how he did. I take deep breaths, calming myself so I don't start bawling like a child.

"You really need to get some rest," I tell Nick.  
"I'm fine," He responds quickly.  
"You're also on the wrong side of the road," I say bluntly.

He snaps to attention, quickly pulling the truck back onto the right side of the road. The swerving wakes Zoey up.  
"Where are we?" She asks.  
"No idea," I respond.

"You could take over for me if you wanted to Aaron," Nick says.  
"Well, I would love to, but I don't know how to drive…" I say, embarassed.  
"I'll teach you, it's not that hard," Nick tells me.  
"I could drive," Zoey says, "I never got approved, but I was taught how to drive!"  
"Somehow that doesn't make me feel confident in sleeping while you're behind the wheel," Nick laughs.

We pull over on the side of the road, Nick does it instinctively, even though there's no reason to follow the road rules anymore. He gets out of the truck and stumbles around to the passenger side, I slip through between the two front seats and take Zoey's old spot in between Sarah and Nikita.

When Zoey gets in the car, her eyes widen, "I never learned stick," she confesses.  
"You'll get there, the trick is just co-ordination…" Nick trails off explaining.

I stop listening to Nick explaining, even though I really should be listening in case I need to take over one time. Last night has really started to get to me and I take a moment to just make sense of it all.

The car lurches and starts moving as Zoey gets it moving.

"I did it!" She exclaims happily.

I go back to thinking about last night.

Coach got shot, it all happened in a second, but one moment, we were all going to escape, and the next, Ellis was gone, and Coach was dead. I feel like we need to go back for Ellis, but we've been driving through the entire night, and Ellis was standing off with that giant ape like creature.

"Hey Nick," I start. When I hear him snoring lightly in the front of the car, I stop.  
"He's asleep," Zoey says, confirming my suspicions.  
"That didn't take long," I respond.

There is a long, tired silence.

"So what did you want Nick for," Zoey asks me.  
"I wanted to know what that thing was last night…" I tell her quietly.  
"I don't know either, it was the first time I'd ever seen it," She tells me, "I think he called it a 'tank' once or twice to Coach."  
"Quite a fitting name for it I guess," I say, thinking about the giant figure of the "tank".

Some time passes before Nick starts to stir.

"You didn't sleep long," I tell him.  
"I couldn't, I kept having nightmares… I'm just glad I've gotten some rest at all, I feel a lot better," He says, "Oh, and I need to go to the bathroom," He says.  
"Well sure, take your pick," I say, gesturing to the bare grassy earth surrounding the truck as far as the eye can see.  
"I'm sure I can manage," He says.

Zoey slows the truck, bringing it cautiously to a stop.

"That was fun!" She says.  
"You didn't do too badly either," I tell her, she smiles genuinely at me.  
"Wake the others, see if they need to get out and stretch their legs," Nick tells me.  
"What about Pete?" I ask him.  
"See what you can do," He responds carefully.

I shake Nikita and Kirstin.

"Good morning," Nikita says, smiling at me and stretching.  
"I'd hardly call it 'good'," I respond, solemnly remembering last night again.  
"No need to be all sad about it, try to stay positive," She tells me.  
"Nikki," Kirstin whines, pulling on her arm, "I gotta pee!"  
"That's why we've stopped," I tell them.  
"Oh good," Nikita says, leaping out of the truck and helping Kirstin down.

I turn to Sarah, carefully rousing her.

"My side feels better," she says, holding the bandage around where she got shot.  
"Come out and stretch your legs," I say, realising that she hasn't been able to walk around for ages.

She climbs past me slowly, lowering herself to the ground carefully and taking a few steps, breathing in deeply. I turn my attention to Pete.

I put my hand on his head, retracting it when I realise how hot it is, he's got a massive fever. The area on his arm around the bite has started to turn green. I wipe some of the blood off his face with the back of my hand, though it's started to dry and become flaky. I shake him, calling his name gently to him. He seems to stir, but his eyes remain screwed shut.

"Hey Petey, if you need to jump out and get some fresh air, now's the time," I let him know calmly.

I decide not to stay with him, for fear that seeing him in pain would make me cry again. I clamber across the seats and leap out of the car, stretching out and breathing in simarly to how Sarah did.

"There's a chill in the air," Nick says, "winter's on the way,"  
"I love the cold," I respond bluntly.  
"So do I, I'm more concerned of how the girls will fare, Zoey's got the right clothes for it, but Nikita seems too underdressed for a northern winter," Nick tells me.

We walk off into the tall grass, Nick keeps looking to make sure none of the girls are in earshot before starting to talk in a quiet voice.

"So, what's going on with you and those girls?" He asks me.  
"What do you mean?" I respond.  
"They both seem to show interest in you, Nikita and Zoey," He says.  
"I doubt it," I laugh.  
"Come on, a blind person could pick up on it," Nick tells me, "I had a bet with… Coach… about when you'd hook up with Zoey."

At the mention of Coach, his eyes mist up and his voice begins to shake.

"When you brought back this new girl, I had to wonder what was going on with you," Nick finishes his thought.

"Well… I haven't really thought about it," I tell him, "a lot has happened."  
"Well, they always shoot glances at you when you're not looking," Nick starts, "and Nikita really valued what you did for her in that underground area."

"Well, now's not a good time for a teenage relationship," I say, thinking I've come up with a good point.  
"Now's as good a time as any," He responds casually.  
"I don't feel good about making a choice in the matter, I respect them both as friends…" I trail off in thought.  
"Don't give me that 'friend' stuff," He starts.  
"I don't want to choose between them!" I respond, cutting him off.  
"Alright, I wont keep pushing the matter," Nick says apologetically, "but don't leave them wondering who you like more for too long, or they'll be at each other's throat before the month is out."

Nick walks off into the grass, leaving me standing in the cold biting chill of winter, the weak gusts of wind shifting my bloodstained hair.

I can't believe how quickly everything has progressed, from it just being Sarah, Pete and I, to everyone, before losing Coach and Ellis again. It makes me wonder just how many more people I care about I should expect to lose before this is all over. On the bright side, we're in the country, and it doesn't seem like the zombie's corruption has spread this far, the landscape seems untouched, and the idea of living on a farm until this all blows over sounds incredibly appealing.

A groaning noise makes me snap around quickly, I'd heard that noise too many times in the past to just let it go by unchecked. I whip around, taking a step backwards. The sight makes me stop, my face drains of blood and I feel my legs go numb.

Pete is standing only a few metres away from me, but his face is pale. His eyes are devoid of life as he stares towards me, his mouth chewing mechanically. His arms are outstretched, he starts to step towards me slowly.

I fall to my knees, feeling all the hope that I had just felt completely vanish. Tears fill my eyes, before pouring down them in streams. I look up at Pete, who is standing over me now, though through the zombified state, he still hesitates.

I grab his hand, it feels cold and lifeless.

"Pete… I'm sorry," I manage to whisper.

I hear a deep voice booming over the open landscape.

"Aaron! Get away from…" Nick starts, stopping when he realises what's going on.

He rushes over to me, making sure I'm not hurt.

"Why isn't he…?" Nick starts.  
I'm unable to form words.  
"Maybe he still knows who he is?" Nick asks.

I look up at Nick hopefully, the tears make his face blurry.

"Pete, raise your hands if you can hear us," Nick tells him.

I let go of Pete's hand. I wait for a long time, my heart hammers at my chest. Nothing happens.

"I don't think he can be saved," Nick tells me honestly.

I nod. I've known it in my head ever since I turned and saw his eyes. Really, I've known it ever since he got bitten, but I was just in deinal, hoping there was some way we could save him.

"Do you want me to…?" Nick asks carefully.  
"No… I'll do it, go and tell the others," I respond, my voice no louder than a whisper.  
"Be careful," Nick tells me, running off quickly.

I stand up, pulling Pete against me, hugging him one last time. His whole body is as cold as ice.

I take the gun out from my back pocket, but when I look at it, I quickly shake my head, dropping the gun.

"I can't do this!" I say to myself.

Pete looks up at me, seeming to respond to what I'm saying. I look at his eyes, through the lifeless glare he gives me, he seems to have a sense of longing deep inside him. I can't tell, but I try to convince myself that this is what he wants. But how could anyone want this…

I reach down, taking the gun off the ground and dusting the dry dirt off it.

I put the barrel of the gun to his forehead, hesitating. I kiss him on the top of the head softly.

"I'm sorry…" I apologise one more time, for everything that I let happen to him.

I close my eyes to look away, but as I move my head, I see everyone running over. I guess that once Nick told them about what happened, he couldn't stop them all from coming down. I hear someone crying, knowing that it must be Sarah.

I count myself down, telling myself that it's just like ripping off a bandaid, the pain will be over quicker if I get it over and done with.

"Three… two… …" I start whispering.

I close my eyes, looking away. My hand clamps down on the trigger slowly.

"One…" I finish.

A loud crack fills my ears, silencing everything else. I drop to my knees again.

Thoughts of Pete's entire life run through my head, from when he was growing up, and I was teaching him how to ride a bike. Walking in with him to his first day at school. Teasing him when he admitted to liking a girl in his class. It all seems like such a long time ago, all the memories seem distant and cut off.

I feel a hand on my shoulder after a while, I open my eyes to see Nikita looking at me emotionlessly. I can tell that she cares, but until she sees Kirstin like I saw Pete, she won't really understand the pain.

"We'll bury him here, it's the least we can do for him," Nick says.

I nod.

"I'll do it alone," I manage.  
"Heck no you wont," Sarah says, tears in her eyes, "He was my brother too."

We dig in silence, Nick brings shovels from the truck and we silently accept them.

When the grave is dug, I wrap Pete in a towel, putting my jacket around him and hugging his lifeless corpse one last time. Knowing that I've lost my brother is almost too much for me to handle, I have to breathe deeply to stop myself from fainting once or twice.

Sarah seems to be handling herself better. I get into the grave, lowering Pete down. Sarah finally loses control and bursts out in a fit of tears as well. I try to lift myself out of the ground, but my legs don't have the strength.

I panic, not wanting to have to turn and see Pete. I start scrabbling at the wall, my breath coming in raggedly and desperate. I throw myself against the dirt wall, digging my fingers into the wall. I start to fall backwards and panic, letting out a cry. I feel a firm grip wrap around my arm and look up to see Nick.

Through all the tears, I'm glad he came to help. Sarah is beyond reason, laying on the ground hitting it with her hand. Nick takes up the second shovel firmly, lowering dirt softly back down into the hole alongside me.

The dirt begins to cover him completely. Right before it covers his head, I take the last moment I'll ever have to see him again.

"Goodbye little brother," I say, before letting the dirt off my shovel to cover him completely.

_**The End!**_

_**Thank you for reading, leave a review if you liked it, be sure to let me know if you'd like a sequel so we can follow the adventures of Aaron and the remaining survivors!**_


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